Insubordinating
by Cherry13
Summary: Sometimes, the past can come back to haunt you. Garrus and Shepard find themselves fighting for their lives and their love. Rated M for violence, adult themes, languages, and periodic smut. BTW, I love reviews, so please let me know what you think!
1. Chapter 1

Ezmay shuddered, looking down at her desk once again. Her hand still rested on the overturned photograph, fingers still toyed with the slat of metal that would hold the holo frame upright, were she to turn it over once more. But she couldn't. He made his choice. He sent his useless email. Anger rose in her once more, and she turned away.

Her model ships hung before her, and beyond that, the rest of her quarters. Not for the first time, she felt like crying. How could Alenko be such an idiot? How could he not see what the stakes were? Cerberus had played on the wrong side in the past; hell…was probably still playing on the wrong side of the field. For all she knew, there were a thousand bases scatted here and there, filled to bursting with creepers and rachni, and a thousand different versions of Jack. She didn't trust the Illusive Man as far as she could throw his smug ass. Sometimes, one had to get into bed with the bad guys in order to do the right thing. Ezmay and Alenko had thrown caution to the wind before, stolen the first Normandy, and set out to do the right thing, courts martial be damned. Where had this unwavering loyalty to the Alliance come from? Was he too much the paragon to see when rules must be bent and broken? Sometimes, the end did justify the means.

The last thought erupted in her, sharp and hot, and the rage boiled over. She snatched a miniature ship off of the rack before her- the Destiny Ascension, fittingly enough- and threw it overhanded as hard as her arm would allow. She felt a muscle yank in her shoulder blade, and watched the little ship fly to shatter against the bulkhead. The thick plastic splintered. The side wings broke off and bounced up in quite a satisfactory manner. Ezmay Shepherd stood, staring at the broken little ship, a feeling of fatigue settling over her, and her pulled muscle beginning to twitch horribly.

"Yeah, well, fuck you too, Alenko." She spat at the remains of the model ship.

Hell with it. Hell with _him_. She had better things to do than trying to batter open closed minds. It was beating her head against a brick wall, and frankly, she was getting sick of the headache.

She turned, starting for her shower, and let her eyes drift lazily over the upturned portrait. Time had come and gone since the Collector base. Her first, most basic instinct had told her to _kill_. Eradicate everything. A scorched earth policy usually worked best in these scenarios. But she had hesitated. If Cerberus were willing to pour the massive amounts of money that they had into Project Lazarus, into _her_, then there was much to be gained from dissecting every aspect of the Collector base. Garrus had questioned her, Thane, Tali….

'_I won't let that happen.'_ She had told them later, said it in such a way that left no doubt. If the Illusive Man screwed her, she'd find a way to show him that Ezmay Shepard was not the person with whom to fuck. She'd adopt a scorched earth policy with _him_.

And if Alenko didn't agree with her, well, then… He'd put her behind him. Turnabout was fair play. It was time to move on.

She stripped, tossing the rumpled uniform into a refresher than slid conveniently out from the wall between her shelves and the toilet. It would be washed and returned to her before she fell asleep tonight. The metal floor was cold under her feet. She relished the feeling of chills running up her body. It made the hot water, when it hit her back, feel all the more delicious. The glass that had risen up around her fogged immediately, and for a time, she let her head loll forward, let the water run over the crown of her head and down over her face. Her mind drifted, the muscles in her scalp and neck starting to loosen. She thought of her parents. She thought of Eden Prime. She thought of stopping at Illium and buying a replacement for the model she'd broken.

She needed music.

"EDI, give me some Chopin. Just randomize it. A nocturne preferably."

The rest of her shower went as if choreographed. Ezmay finished up, and then padded into her sitting room to stretch out on the bed. She let her head tip back over the bed and closed her eyes. By the time she was drifting off, EDI had spooled her music to the Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor. It was mournful and beautiful. Shepard's fingers started to go lax on the edge of her white bathrobe. Not for the first time, she wished there was someone in the bed next to her.

Garrus halted outside Shepard's door, and cocked his head. Strains of music were filtering out; Shepard tended to listen to her music loud. But, gods, he didn't know what instrument was being played. All he knew was it sounded like crying made into music. There was a second of silence, then he heard the soft lilting start up again. This was different. He knew this instrument. Garrus lay his hand on Shepard's door, tilting his head close to listen. A piano, it was called. He couldn't name the artist or the title of the piece, but over the course of many conversations with the Commander, he'd come to learn a little more about human music. This piece….it was sorrowful. Something yanked in his chest as he listened to the notes. His mind went distracted for a moment…

'_See, Garrus, humans hear music in the minor keys 'n perceive it as sorrowful.'_

_Shepard's hair was tousled. Her clothing was wrinkled and her uniform jacket lay slung on the couch next to her. She leaned, picking up the wine bottle, and sloshing a bit more into the glass. He'd done them the favour of bringing them something they both could drink. He was already well on his way to being quite drunk, and they were having quite the lively discussion of music. Shepard's sound system blared classical human music over their raised voices. Playing cards and both turian and Alliance currency were scattered over the low table in front of them._

'_Mournful 'cause it sounds like someone's gutting a varren and recorded it.' He sank further down on the couch, resting the back of his head against the wall. What he'd really wanted to tell her at the time was that he could hear the spectrums of sound associated with human music. The stringed instruments were truly a torture._

_Shepard laughed, a rare, full-bodied laugh spurred on by her blood-alcohol content. She picked up a turian coin, and threw it at him. _

'_Hey!' Garrus half-yelled as it hit him in the chest. He made a bigger deal out of it than it was, because it amused him to do so._

'_Oh, yeah.' Shepard grinned, and launched another coin at his belly. _

'_Now, godammit.' He swore, using the human phrase he'd heard her use earlier in the night. It sounded funny coming from his lips. Shepard reeled back, setting her cup on the table and laughed. 'Now, Shepard…'_

'_Commander to you.' She was still laughing. Her face was turning red; hearing him mock her accent and use that phrase had tickled her. 'I'll toss your turian ass in the brig if you insubordinate me one more time...'_

'_Oh, yeah?' He said, lurching to his feet. He was unsteady, but managed to remain aloft. What he planned to do, even he wasn't sure. The booze was driving him._

'_Oh, yeah.' Shepard crossed an arm over her abdomen in a protective motion, all the while laughing. The other hand rose up in front of her._

'_Oh, yeah?' Garrus stumbled over the foot and a half to where she sat, and reached down to her. 'If I insubordinate you?'_

'_Oh yeah!' She screamed with laughter, twisting away on the couch as she went. 'Don't, you stupid ass!'_

'_Hang on, Commander, I'm insubordinating you!'_

_Her face was red now, and had turian faces had the ability to colour with laughter, his would have been scarlet as well. He picked her up from the couch, tossing her over his shoulder, all while she screamed and laughed, and shouted at him to 'No, no, put me down! Mutiny!'_

'_Brace y'self. Can't even speak your own language. 'm going to insubordinate you for it!'_

_Her laughter was in his ear._

There wasn't laughter inside the cabin now; hadn't been laughter in there for a while. They'd drank and played cards like fiends when he first came aboard and was well enough to move about again. That was before they'd landed on Horizon. When times were still innocent enough and the Commander was still eagerly gleaning every scrap of intel she could on Alenko. She'd fought on the Collector ship with a killer instinct and a fury that came from having truly nothing to lose. That had been days ago; now they were in transit.

And Garrus had come up to have it out with her. This…funk that she was in. It wasn't going to cut it for moral. The crew needed direction now. What crew was staying, anyway.

Garrus straightened up, and jabbed a talon onto the call button. He heard a female voice from within….but nothing happened. Once more, he jabbed the button. There was silence. Awkwardly, he stood, debating what to do. Okay, well, he could just go in. The display was green, showing the door wasn't barred. Shepard didn't lock her door; there wasn't any reason to. "Dammit." He muttered to himself. Usually she either answered, or gave a reason why the visitor should bugger off. This was unusual.

Hell with it.

In he went….and immediately halted.

And there she lay, stretched out on the bed, head tipped over the edge and eyes slitted closed. Garrus's blue eyes were drawn instantly to Ezmay's bare knees.

"Did I come at a bad time?"

Ezmay's head snapped up, eyes opening suddenly and focusing on him.

"Oh, Jesus, Garrus." She sat upright, and twisted around. Garrus raised his hands in a 'no problem gesture,' and turned his back.

"Oh, hey, you got an angel fish." He observed.

"Cut the crap, wiseass. You just barge right in?"

"You usually answer one way or another. I thought something was wrong."

The lighting of Shepard's cabin was just right. Garrus found, to his dismay, that the backlight from Shepard's desk afforded him a view as she strode behind him to her bathroom. He couldn't see much, to be truthful, but he did get a glimpse of smooth collarbones, and further below that, slim ankles. Garrus had never seen so very much of her body before. Even when they spared, she was in a shipsuit, and these little glimpses of flesh were curious to him. Was she really that delicate underneath the hard plating of her armour?

"Well, next time, don't come in unless you're invited. What if I'd been changing? Polishing a gun? I might have shot you." Her voice was muffled through the door. Garrus turned, then, confident he wouldn't be catching her en flagrante. He did not answer her back.

'_Not bloody likely.' _He thought. _'You always check your shots.'_

**_One month earlier_**

What the fuck had he done? Garrus bent over, leaning his head in his hands. He groaned, and kicked his feet again the floor once in frustration. Had he really let his pent-up sexual tension get the better of him?

"Your commanding-_fucking_-officer!" He said to himself.

But yet, when she'd thrown back his quip about testing reach and flexibility, he'd replied without really thinking it through. He'd grown very devil-may-care since Omega. And yeah, like he said, he didn't have a human fetish. But he had to admit….there was something appealing about human females. They were soft where turian females were soft. Their skin looked all soft and smooth. They didn't have any plates to speak of. At least that's what he gathered from Fornax.

That was…until he'd looked at the vids.

Garrus did not raise his head from the desk, but reached out. His talons closed around the glass of turian beer. Of course, there was the dilemma. He couldn't raise his head to drink without having to look at the paused vid. And he hadn't quite come to the decision as to whether he wanted to continue it or not. It was…rather graphic.

_Oh, hell_. He thought. _Don't be a wuss, Vakarian_._ If you're going to do this thing right, you've got to learn._

There were groups of turians out there who did indeed have fetishes for humans. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that he couldn't watch the vids without thinking of Shepard, and it was getting him right hot and bothered.

He admitted defeat and raised his head. Garrus _really_ wanted to finish his drink. With alcohol came oblivion.

And she'd kept pressing, kept…._flirting. _And he'd be damned if he could resist it. Hell, he'd be lying if he said he didn't want to try it with her. Just never brought it up or pressed the issue since she'd belonged to then-Lieutenant Alenko. Even then, he couldn't be sure that she didn't harbor any anti-turian sentiments. Most humans did.

Good and stinking drunk, he was. Garrus looked up, seizing the turian beer in front of him, and draining what was left of it. The alcohol burned down into his stomach, and momentarily distracted him from the sight of the naked human writhing in the vid before him. Supposedly, the turian skewering her was famous in certain circles. Garrus couldn't really identify him. Actually, he couldn't even identify his own shoes at this point. All he knew was that apparently human females were pink in places he didn't know existed on humans, and that the expanse of a human's body was smooth, with a sheen that didn't exist in turians.

His shipsuit had suddenly become tighter in the lower section, and he was embarrassed all over again. His talons fumbled with the holo screen, and he clicked the vid off. Resigned, he sagged in his chair.

Garrus had considered himself a man of the world until he'd watched that vid. Hell, he was so jaded by everything that had happened. It was doubly humiliating to find himself so unsure, and yet so incredibly turned on by the sight of plating pressed to soft, pink flesh, and imagining it to be him and Shepard.

Fuck, he was going to have to blow off steam before he even thought of blowing off stem with _her._


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard was visibly calmer when she stepped from the bathroom. Garrus saw her reflection in the glass of the aquarium and spun to face her.

"Look, Commander, you're right. I shouldn't have come in. I got worried." He flicked his eyes downward, feeling Ezmay's eyes on him. "You act like you're made of steel. If I didn't know you better, I'd think you were."

Ezmay weighed this, and nodded to him. Her face was perfectly calm, and for some reason, the sight of it raised Garrus's ire. Did she always have to act the ice princess?

"Actually, I am now, apparently." She said with a hint of a grin. "I probably owe you and Tali an explanation anyway. You've all been tolerant of my bullshit."

He was immediately soothed. No longer irritated, he took a step forward.

"Shepard, you told me once that you didn't want to..uh..pressure me. I'm not going to do that now. You don't owe anyone an explanation. I just wish there was something I could do to help."

A slight blush bloomed in Ezmay's cheeks. Yeah. Pressuring him. Did one count knowing glances and half-cocked smiles as pressure? Because she'd done plenty of that. And the good sport had taken it in stride. He'd done his fair share of pressure back.

"Help, huh?" She weighed that, and then grinned suddenly. Garrus was thrown off. A sudden smile like that usually meant trouble.

"You know what I need?" She asked. He thought…maybe…it was supposed to be rhetorical.

'_A good, long shag?'_ Garrus shook his head. He was trying to clear away the thought; Shepard took it as an answer. He was suddenly ashamed of himself.

"I need the old days." She folded her hands behind her back, straightening up, and speaking matter-of-factly.

He was confused. Did she mean she was going to go back to the Alliance?

"Uh…" He was the pinnacle of articulate. "You've been thinking about this for a while." "Yeah. I can't help what Kaiden said, or did, but I can't let it keep haunting me. He moved on. I need to as well." Shepard's head bobbed as if in punctuation.

The low light glinted off her black hair. Garrus ripped his eyes away from the glossy sheen and focused on her. How bloody long was this going to hang over her head? Talons tightened as Alenko's face appeared in his mind. Once again, the urge to murder gripped him. Betrayal. Alenko should have made love to the Code, rather than the woman.

"To be fair, Shepard, Horizon was only a few months ago…"

She'd already turned and was punching furiously at her private terminal.

"I've got an assignment for you, Garrus."

"Oh?" His posture corrected instantly. Funny how the no-nonsense tone and the official words could kick him backwards through time.

"Yes. Until we reach Citadel space, I'm putting the crew on a light rotation. That includes both you and me. I want you to go down in the cargo area, and look through the stores. There's some of that good wine left that we picked up on Illium. You can drink that, right?" Her eyes went to him over her shoulder.

There was momentary confusion, but Garrus picked up on what she was getting at very quickly.

"Commander, honestly, I think I've taken enough of your credits for now. I wouldn't want to bankrupt the savior of the galaxy."

"That remains to be seen, turian." She'd turned away, and her voice was still no-nonsense, though Garrus could see her ears slowly tug upwards as she smiled. "If I remember correctly, I was up 500 credits on you last time…"

"You were down 380, and yes, I can drink that wine."

There was suddenly a datapad waving in his face. He snatched it away from her. A glance found engineering specs and Shepard's approval code.

"While you're down there, take that to Tali. She'll need that to requisition replacement parts on the Citadel." She was serious now and standing with her arms crossed and a gentle smile on her face. "When you're done, bring that wine and your money back up here."

_He'd intended to toss her on her bed, and then to do a large celebratory dance to mock her. But it had ended with him bending to drop her, and then falling over, off the side of the bed. Shepard's laughter echoed around the cabin._

'_You stupid ass.' She said again, rolling to peer at him over the edge of the bed. For Garrus's part, his head was wooden and up was down. With a monumental effort, he righted himself, sat up, and then leaned back against the bulkhead. Gods…how much had they drank. He squinted at the wine bottle, and saw it was empty._

'_You know what, Shepard? I'm getting another wine and I'm going to drink you under the table.'_

'_Right.' Shepard turned. She slithered off the edge of the bed, and started hauling herself to the table. Stumbled to her feet, and then stood upright._

'_Come here and help me up.'_

'_God, Vakarian, you're so helpless.' Nonetheless, she edged closer and bent to extend her hand to him. His talons clasped around her fleshy paw. But instead of standing, he yanked on her. Shepard fell, and Garrus closed his arms around her as she landed on his chest, between his knees. All of a sudden, his face was in her hair, his nose at her ear and his mouth at the curve of her jaw. He couldn't kiss her, like he'd seen humans do, because of the lack of the appropriate flesh to do so. But he nuzzled her, inhaling the scent of gun oil, regulation fabric, wine, and below that, a note of a sweet flower that spoke of refinement. Shepard froze in his arms, but did not break away. He was glad. _

_He'd acted on impulse. When she stood there, fighting the effects of the alcohol, carefree for a moment, she was…appealing, to say the least. He'd come up here to blow off steam, but chickened out at the last minute. So they'd partied the way they always partied instead. Hadn't wanted to take advantage of her. Hadn't wanted to con sex from her when her heart had a big hole on it. If her heart were elsewhere, all he'd ever get was her body. That wasn't good enough for Garrus Vakarian._

'_Now you're definitely being insubordinate.' She murmured into his shoulder._

'_You can always throw me in the brig.' His voice reminded her. She had to have felt the rumble in his chest, and the stirring below his waist. _

_Not yet. She wasn't free and clear yet. He wasn't going to have sex with her yet._

'_Don't tempt me.' _

_She seemed quite suddenly less drunk, and Garrus himself seemed to achieve a sort of clarity as well. Indeed, when she raised her head to look at him, her eyes focused just fine. Garrus felt a little bit of something in his chest slipping away. It seemed to flow from him to her. There was sudden, desperate urge to mark her. She'd look damn good with a blue tattoo along the line of her neck. The feel of her small, very warm frame against the line of his torso felt very, very good. Her voice, when she spoke again, was lucid and curious._

'_Where does this go from here, Garrus?'_

_A sudden thought leapt into him. Did he dare?_

'_Ezmay…' He tried her name on his tongue, and looked to see what she thought. There were no imperious looks and reprimands. Only silent waiting. 'Well….uh..I hadn't planned that far yet.'_

_She moved against him, and he saw that she was getting to her feet. Her hands came out, and he clasped his talons around them. With effort, she hefted him up, with a little of his help._

'_C'mere.' She said, holding on to his talons still. She backed until the back of her knees were at the bed, and then she sat. One hand patted the smooth, white coverlet beside her. 'It's late. Let's lie down.'_

_Garrus was suddenly, painfully embarrassed as he sat. He talked a good line, been around, seen so many bad things. Now he was behaving as flighty as an asari maiden newly loosed into the galaxy. _

'_I'm…I'm sorry…' He began to stammer. Ezmay hushed him with a finger pressed to his mouth as she began to turn and curl on the bed._

'_This thing'll happen at its own pace.' Her hand drifted down to his elbow, and she tugged slightly, indicating he should lay with her. 'Let's just let Fate dictate this one.'_

_Garrus collapsed next to her, curling, twining his arm around her waist. At the last moment he started, and then relaxed. Humans probably didn't have the same erogenous zones. He wasn't behaving out of fashion._

_As they dozed, Garrus felt her fingers brush over his scarred mandible. He slitted his eyes open, blinking sleep away. A smile was on Shepard's face, her eyes closed, her chest settling into the gentle rise/fall of sleep. She looked content. Garrus's chest began to vibrate nearly imperctibly in a purr._

"You know, I was winning until you changed up the game." Garrus peered down at the hand he'd been dealt. For a couple hours, they'd played poker until Shepard got bored, and insisted on a change of game. More likely, she was irritated at the growing pile of currency on Garrus's side of the table, but he wasn't going to be a jerk about it.

"Hey, turnabout's fair play. Remember when I played that ridiculous turian card game with you? I'm pretty sure you hustled me…"

"I don't hustle."

"..and before I know it, you're up nearly a thousand credits."

"Bardac's a great game. It's not my fault you're terrible at it."

Shepard tossed a silver coin to the center of the table. An assortment of gold, silver, and copper coloured coins had grown there. A silver-sheened claw tapped a matching bet to the pile, and then Shepard dealt. Garrus meticulous arranged each of his cards in ascending order and according to suit. Helped him keep things straight.

"How is it that you're having trouble with this game?" She said, teasing him. Her flat, white teeth glinted at him. For a moment, he admired the contrast it made against her swarthy skin. Garrus gestured with his cards.

"It's not that I don't understand the rules." He tapped the briscola card with a claw. "It's that you seem to have a never-ending supply of trumps."

"You want me to show you my hand? I'm just lucky."

"Riiiight." Garrus reached out a claw, and pulled one of her sleeves away from her arm. Shepard barked a short, sharp laugh and tugged her arm away.

Her hand was drifting towards the ashtray, where a cigarette was waiting for her, when suddenly the ship seemed to turn upside down. The impact lurched everything to the right, and Shepard fell to her side, skidding along the leather couch and her legs flailing over her head. Cards and credits rained to the floor, and their glasses overturned. The sharp stink of wine suddenly flooded the cabin. Garrus was tossed into the edge of the couch, wine sliding along the floor and soaking into the leg of his shipsuit before he could move out of the way.

"What the bloody hell?" Shepard's voice rang out at the same time that Garrus was reaching out to check on her. The shaking of the ship stopped, and silence prevailed, aside from Shepard's heavy breathing and the sound of general alarms going off around the ship. "EDI, what just happened?"

EDI's voice came as Garrus was picking himself up. He tugged Shepard to her feet.

"There was an explosion in Cargo Bay One. At the moment, I am venting the bay to extinguish the fires."

Garrus was confused, and when he looked to the Commander, he saw the same confusion mirrored there. Cargo Bay One was situated beneath Grunt's area. It was accessible through a small staircase, and through the bay doors. Before Grunt had moved in, they'd kept it unaired and unheated, but since the krogan had taken up residence, they'd juggled supplies around. Currently it housed stores and rations for long trips into deep space. There simply wasn't anything down there that could have exploded.

"EDI, is Grunt okay?" Garrus spoke up.

"Grunt was not in starboard cargo at the time of the explosion; He is currently in the galley."

Shepard was already shrugging her uniform jacket on as she moved towards the door; a backwards glance over her shoulder found Garrus right at her heels.

They took the elevator down to the lower decks and waited until EDI stopped venting the cargo area. Garrus had to admit that his blood was singing with excitement. The real danger was long past, of course. A quick conversation with Joker had confirmed that the hull was safe and intact; they would need to conduct repairs of course. It was fortunate that Shepard had put them on a course to Illium. The maintenance bays of the asari were top-notch. Garrus caught himself grinning as he moved beside Shepard. It was thrilling, watching her issue orders in that terse, no-bullshit kind of way she had.

"Miranda, get me the manifest for the last time we filled up Cargo Bay One. I want to know what we had in there. Tali, take Jacob and go down there." She nodded to a couple of other technicians. "Go with her. Do a sweep. Check for radiological, chemical…whatever. Find out what it was. Whatever the physical components were, they're out in space now. Check for residue."

"Commander, I'd recommend going through surveillance and seeing if there was anything unusual." He piped up at her side. Already his mind was working. They'd last docked at the fuel depot in the Shrike Abyssal. Before that, they were at Omega. Was it family of that batarian that tried to poison Shepard?

"Good call. Joker, I want you and EDI combing the sensors just before that explosion. If there was so much as a mouse fart in the ship, I want to know."

Joker's voice over the intercom was half-amused, half-serious.

"Mouse farts. Got it."

Shepard's hand brushed over Garrus's shoulder; he turned to her, a little surprised. Her mouth had a quirk to the corner.

"Vakarian, don't think you've gotten off easy. We're going to continue our game of briscola later." Her eyes held a gleam that spoke of mischief.

"Right, Commander. Be sure to restock your sleeve. You burned through a lot of high cards."

With that, the two parted. Each had their own duties in the wake of the explosion. It was curious, though. Each found their minds drifting backwards in time to the cabin and the card game.


	3. Chapter 3

"So lay it on me. What happened?"

Miranda cleared her throat, and straightened up at her place in the comm room.

"Well, according to the manifest, we'd just restocked our deep space rations. Our manifest claims 460 kilograms of dried stores, including MRE's and water packs. That was all we had in Cargo Bay One. No chems, no fuels, nothing else. Certainly nothing that could mix and produce an explosion. I compared it by EDI's logs, though. EDI's survey of weight said we were carrying 459.4 kilograms instead."

Shepard shook her head.

"So, someone nipped down for some mac and cheese."

All eyes in the room swung to Grunt.

"Don't." He said, a growl low in his chest. "Don't get me wrong, I like your human food just fine. Why the hell would I want the preserved stuff when we've got better right upstairs?"

"Fair enough. So we've got a little under a kilogram of missing weight. Tali, what did your team find?"

Tali's fingers flew over her omni tool. A display lit in the center of the conference railing. There was a schematic of the cargo bay. Different coloured outlines recreated the placement of the rations.

"This is where the stores were."

Shepard waited, leaning back on her heels. She could feel Garrus practically vibrating with excitement beside her. He was either on the trail of something and was waiting eagerly to unveil his discovery, or he simply had the hunter instinct ramped up.

"These areas of blue indicate residue of chemicals that we found. You can see from where we found them, that it indicates where the explosion took place and how far out it extended."

Shepard ripped her eyes away from Garrus's hands and examined the display. It was all contained in one spot. They were lucky that the rations had been shoved up against an interior wall. If they'd been placed near the hull like usual, it could have been a lot worse. Jacob spoke up.

"What was unusual, commander, was the types of residue we found."

"Right!" Tali took over. She was starting to get excited. "Everything got sucked out into the vacuum when EDI vented the bay. But we found traces of cesium, nitric acid, and hexamethylene-tetramine, as well as sulphur."

Shepard paused, and then nodded thoughtfully.

"Okay." She said, glancing around. "I'm going to confess that my expertise isn't in chemical compounds. Pretend that I'm in kindergarten and put in terms I can understand."

Garrus spoke up, cutting off Tali just as she was starting to talk.

"Nitric acid and hexamethylene-tetramine are high explosives. Cesium and sulphur show up in exhibitionary fireworks." He watched Shepard's face. "Cesium gives it a pretty, pretty purple-blue colour."

He was not disappointed. Shepard's eyes narrowed. He saw her chest rise slightly as she drew in a breath.

"So it was a bomb. But wait…why fireworks and high explosives?"

"Could be an amateur. Could be he didn't have enough of the nitric-tetramine stuff to get the bang he wanted. He might have thought the fireworks were more potent than they were." Garrus's mind was working furiously It was likely Omega, though whoever did this would have been smarter to do it in the Shrike Abyssal because it wasn't _quite_ the rotten pisshole that Omega was. "Our rations were lightened. We got something else added instead."

"So where did we get that particular load from?" Ezmay's head swiveled back to Miranda, who shook her own.

"I'm not sure commander. We had both levo and dextro rations down there, not mixed, of course. But we got provisions on both stations. Omega didn't have everything we needed."

"Well, godammit." Shepard swore. "Tali, did you find anything else?"

"Yes, actually. We found a bit of coagulated blood. Just here." A brilliant red splotch lit up on the display.

_This _made his mandibles flare outward in surprise.

"Did we compare the DNA from the blood to the DNA Dr. Chakwas has in the personnel files?" Shepard asked.

"She's doing it right now. There's a lot to look at. Everyone on board now, plus those that we lost in the Collector attack." Tali nodded. "Someone could have cut themselves and it didn't get cleaned up."

"It would be in a state of decay by now." Garrus pointed out. He'd seen enough blood spilled on the Citadel. "Not coagulated."

"This is true." Jacob said. "But just to be on the safe side."

"Fair enough." Shepard said. "Garrus?"

He cleared his throat.

"I haven't found anything yet. You know we don't keep that bay aired up, and we don't keep the lights on down there beyond what shines down from Grunt's living space. It's hard to see. I'm going to go through it once more, look at thermal and infared, go through it with a fine-tooth comb. I _can_ tell you that there wasn't anyone in there that wasn't our people when we were at Omega and the Shrike depot."

Shepard nodded. "So, someone at the suppliers slipped it in before we loaded it on."

"More than likely. It's the only logical explanation…" He trailed off. There was something else he wanted to say, but not in front of the present company. Ezmay cocked her head at him, and a look of understanding bloomed there.

"Joker?"

The pilot spoke over the intercom. He was still in the cockpit, hadn't wanted to tear himself away. It was easier for everyone this way.

"EDI found a signal embedded in our outgoing traffic not long before the explosion. Whoever encrypted it though, they weren't dicking around. We're still trying to crack it. Probably made by another VI."

There was silence in the comm room. Shepard broke it by leaning against the rail and cracking her knuckles. The sharp noises cut through the silence by a gunshot.

"Right then. Someone's gunning for our asses, then." She paused, steepling her fingers. Her eyes were fixated on Tali's display. Garrus could recognize the deep thought. Shepard had once joked that instead of a brain, she had a space hamster running tirelessly on a wheel. He imagined right about now, that hamster was running at about mach 12. Little legs were probably bloody, poor thing.

"Right." She said again, straightening. "We dock at Illium in about twelve hours. Everyone, you can go about your business as usual, but I want a security detail watching the Normandy. Thane, I want you, Grunt, and Samara keeping an eye out. Miranda, Jacob, Mordin, you switch in for them at a usual shift change. Keep an eye on the repair techs especially. Keep me informed if you find anything else."

She nodded. People began to drift off. Ezmay turned, fixing Garrus with a look.

"Officer Vakarian, I believe you left a great deal of money in my cabin from our card game. You better come collect it."

She didn't fool him; he wasn't coming up to collect credits. She knew….She knew there was something he couldn't say in front of the rest of the crew.

"I'll just walk with you then, Commander."

Ramrod straight, they both walked to the elevator and boarded. Garrus kept a practiced, bored expression on his face. He was suddenly paranoid. He held his tongue until they were safely in Shepard's cabin.

Something gave him pause. The air smelled different in Shepard's cabin. It smelled spicy, but then he remembered the spilled wine. Little cleaning bots had come and cleaned the broken glass and spills. He found the cards and money laying neatly on the table.

How fast a perfect evening could be ruined. He smirked. Just his luck.

"Out with it, Garrus." She said. When Garrus looked over to her, she was working her right shoulder. It must still pain her. "What aren't you telling me?"

"The supplier might have slipped in the explosives. One of the crew might have also planted the bomb."

Shepard paused, frowning. She let her arm drop to her side.

"You really think one of them would do that?" Black hair shifted as she shook her head. "No. I refuse to believe it. These people have been through hell and back with me."

"They might not have been gunning for you, Ezmay." He still felt weird saying her name. "The bomb was right underneath Grunt's sleeping space. It wasn't near the hull. I can't help but think that the placement was intentional."

"Clan Weyrloc, maybe?"

"Maybe. But didn't you damn near wipe out the entire clan?"

"Probably." Again, she was working her shoulder. "Dammit, this tightened up."

Garrus sighed, then jabbed a talon at the couch.  
"Sit."

A half grin came to Shepard's face.

"Garrus, can't you think of better ways to cop a feel? I mean, every teenage boy on Earth tries that tactic."

"What am I going to feel? Your shoulder?" He rolled his eyes. "I'm not offering to rub you down. You need to get off your feet and stretch out that arm."

The curve of Shepard's back went convex as she sagged. Resigned, she plunked down on the couch.

"It's terrible, but I can't help but feel a little invigorated by all this."

"It's only natural." He replied. "People like us aren't content unless there's some kind of violence going on."

In a closet by her bed, Shepard kept a small selection of liquors. Garrus knew which one she favoured when she was fatigued. He plucked the bottle of lemon vodka and poured a bit into a glass for her. It was shame he couldn't try it; the smell was intriguing. He made a mental note to try something in lemon made for turians when he got a chance. Ezmay took the glass with an appreciative sigh and sipped at it. It burned down her gut, nearly as much as her shoulder burned when she raised her arm up and over her head.

"Who do you think it is?" Referring to the planter of the bomb. Her mind never stopped working.

Garrus was back at the liquor cabinet, perusing it thoughtfully. She kept a couple of turian ales for when they played cards, but he wasn't feeling it right now. With a sigh, he closed the hatch, and was about to reply when his breath caught in his throat. In the shiny metal, Shepard's bed was reflected. Below it, there was a small red light blinking ominously.

_Blink…..blink….blink…_ He watched in horror as it began to blink in quicker succession.

Gods, he'd never moved so fast in his life. In one fluid motion, he spun and crossed the small sitting room in two swift steps. Shepard barely had time to register that he was moving towards her before he was picking her up. The tumbler of vodka fell and shattered on the table. One moment, she was comfortably sipping the vodka, working the kink out of her shoulder, and then next moment, she was slung over a turian's bony shoulder. Instinct told her not to struggle, but let him carry her.

They weren't quite through the door when it blew. Metal flew, bits of glass, water from the fish tank. Garrus and Shepard were thrown into the wall by the elevator. She shielded her face from the blast, but there was no way to protect her head from slamming into the wall.

The world went black.


	4. Chapter 4

_***Three Weeks Earlier***_

Try as he might, Garrus couldn't figure out how he was going to avoid becoming a gibbering idiot when at last it came time to "blow off steam." He was quite afraid that it was going to become the shortest performance of his life. There was a silver lining though; at least she wouldn't know any better. For all she knew, all turians were just naturally premature.

Garrus lowered his head into his hands in a sudden rush of embarrassment; only the beeping of the weapon calibration system tore him out of it.

And gods, he wished he'd never watched the documentaries. His curiosity'd gotten the better of him. He'd suffered through three turian/human fetish vids before he got disgusted with the lack of understanding. For fuck's sake, Shepard wasn't a hooker fresh from Afterlife. Although he hoped _fervently_ that after it was all said and done, she'd want to continue the relationship, and hoped _more fervently_ that they could explore and play, that kind of thing wasn't the style he wanted for the first time. 'Course, it would all be a moot point if he kept having these mini-nervous breakdowns. He'd die from a heart attack on her doorstep.

So he'd gotten some documentaries on humans from Mordin. God, what a mistake _that_ had been. If Shepard ever wondered how Mordin knew that she and Garrus were becoming….friendly…well, there it was. She either didn't think to ask, or didn't really care. For his part, Garrus was bewildered. The human reproductive system wasn't really gross; in fact, he could see a certain appeal in warm, wet caverns that felt like silk and gripped like a vice. He was, however, concerned about erogenous zones. What if he had a hard time finding that little organ on her body? What if she didn't like him caressing her chest? He couldn't kiss her. The fact of the matter was that he needed something that was neither clinical, nor pornographic. Those venues were failing him.

He was so deep in thought that he didn't hear the door open behind him. The rush of cool air did bring him around. He spun, and stared at her. It took him a second to remember to speak.

"Shepard. Need me for something?"

"Have you got a minute?" She looked….a little awkward to Garrus's eye. Was she nervous too?

He glanced around. The last thing he needed was word getting out to the rest of the crew. It was embarrassing enough knowing that Mordin had spoken with Shepard. His talons found the button on the battery console that would seal the door behind her. He clicked it, and then watched as she became _extremely_ amused.

"Yeah. I've been thinking about what we've talked about. Blowing off steam, easing tension."

She looked highly interested, and not a little tickled. His visor picked up her vital signs. Wait….was that right? Her heartbeat was elevating. Was that normal?

"I've never considered cross-species intercourse before. And damn, saying it that way doesn't help. Now I feel dirty and clinical." Also supremely embarrassed. And mortified. And feeling a bit crushed, actually. There was no way she was hitting on him out of anything but desperation. So he had to be fair…

"Are we crazy to even be thinking about this? I'm not….Look, Shepard, I know you can find something a little closer to home." He paced, talons brushing over his head self-consciously. He really, really didn't want to do this, but he didn't want to even _think_ that she was giving him a pity fuck.

At last she spoke.

"I don't want something closer to home. I want you." As she spoke, she stepped toward him. Garrus's heart began to pound. Godamn, but he had to fight the urge to take her right here and now. "I want someone I can trust." She finished it with a beaming grin. It made Garrus's stomach feel warm. Somewhere further below, he felt…..enthusiasm.

"I can do that." He chirped, nodding his head to emphasize that he was definitely okay with that. "I'll find some music…and do some research to figure out how this thing should work."

His mind was positively flying now. All the vids he'd watched, but it wasn't what he would call research. He knew the mechanics of it, but he wanted to be sure he turned in a stellar performance. Just like demonstration sparring for an inspection by turian commanders. Garrus knew he didn't know it all, and that disquieted him.

"It'll either be a night to treasure, or a horrible inter-species awkwardness thing." He paused, considering the implications. In his mind, Shepard ran screaming from the cabin. Or she laughed at him, or she stared at him with disdain. The worst possibility…he might hurt her. No. He didn't want to think about that. He snapped back to the present where this appealing little human stood smirking at him, arms crossed over her breasts.

"In which case, fighting the Collectors will be a welcome distraction, so…you know…a win either way."

Shepard's hand snaked out and began to stroke his shoulder. Garrus's breath caught in his throat.

"You know, Garrus, if you're not comfortable with this, it's okay. I'm not trying to pressure you." She said. She sounded…regretfully. As if she didn't want to offer this, but wanted to be fair.

"You're about the only friend I've got left in this screwed-up galaxy" He wanted to use a different word than 'friend' but he dare not be presumptuous. "I'm not going to pretend I've got a fetish for humans."

_Not yet, anyway._

"But this isn't about that. It's about us. You don't ever have to worry about making me uncomfortable. Nervous, yes..but never uncomfortable."

He wanted to turn and bump his head against her hand. There was a shiver deep inside Garrus's chest. He was a bit disappointed when Shepard stepped back and crossed her arms back over her chest. Was he imagining it, or did she have a teasing look on her face?

"So, when should I book the room?" She asked. Definitely teasing now.

"I'd wait if you're okay with it. Disrupt the crew as little as possible, and take that last chance to find some calm just before the storm." Not ready, definitely not ready. He wasn't sure if he'd ever be ready. "You know me. I always like to savour the last shot just before popping the heat sink."

He'd tried to make a joke, an analogy, but the look on Shepard's face brought him up short. Oh, dammit…what had he just said? She was struggling not to laugh.

"Wait…that metaphor just went somewhere horrible." Now he was well and truly embarrassed.

"I'll let you get back to work." She said, a smile on her face and a laugh in her voice. She began backing away, out the door. Was he imagining it, or was she drinking in this moment?

"Right." He said more to himself than to her. He didn't want her to go. Now he was all frustrated. Damned little tease. "'Cause I'm in a great place to optimize firing algorithms right now."

He watched as she back out and the door closed in front of her. With a sigh, he sagged against the control console. They were…going to have to do this thing soon. It was hard enough to have conversations like that with her and not be able to relieve the tension.

* * *

It was all very familiar, when Shepard started to come to. The shuddering, the shaky breaths in, the blur of white. It started to fade into meaningful shapes and colours, but she had to blink, the light was so bright. Her vision blurred, and against she struggled to focus. Sounds began to come to her, muffled at first, and then with more clarity. There was an unpleasant ringing in her ears. She tried to turn her head, and heard that the ringing wasn't ringing after all, but the beep of a machine.

Suddenly, there was a great deal of motion in the room. She had trouble tracking it. There was also a whole lot of pain. She cried out.

Words. She couldn't understand them. She was suddenly scared. It terrified her to be this out of control. She couldn't move; tried to kick her legs. Felt hands on her arms, her ankles.

"No! No!" She tried to say. Her own voice frightened her. A grunt.

Garrus! Where was Garrus? He'd been with her before…..where…? Where had he been with her? She couldn't remember. Just knew that he had been. She wanted him. Scared.

"Garrus!" That came out right. She felt a small bit of foolish pride. Again, she tried to shout it. "Garrus! I want Garrus!"

"….Vakarian?.." She heard that. Started to struggle more.

"…..get him…." Again, the cool hands holding her down. There was a familiar smell. Why wouldn't her eyes work? The scent of perfumed asari filled her senses.

"He's coming, Shepard. Just rest. He'll be here when you wake up." She knew that voice. Gentle, scholarly. It echoed in her muddled head and made sense. Ezmay's heart felt obscenely grateful. He was coming. He would be here. She let herself be borne away by a blue sea and then into darkness once more.

* * *

_Chasing down a rat in the tunnels._ Garrus snarled to himself, focusing on the display. The small thermal signature had been eluding them for days, but now….now he had them.

_And you're going to pay, whoever you are. I'm going to drag your employer out of you, and after that….._

"EDI, I think we've got it. Can you seal the duct down where it is?"

"Yes. Shutting duct section seals now."

Garrus's eyes lingered on the emergency fire systems. It was….really tempting to fill that section of the ductwork with halon. But if he did, he'd never find out who it was, and what was behind bombing the Normandy…and Shepard. He watched, a grim pleasure settling over him, as EDI sealed off the section of ductwork where their stowaway was.

Suddenly, EDI beamed up in the usual blue-silver orb and blinked at him.

"Officer Vakarian, there is a problem."

"What?" He turned his head away from the display.

"The stowaway is human. He tried to escape before I brought the seals down. He is pinned beneath the seal door closest to the starboard side."  
Garrus swore. "Is he dead?"

"No, but I am monitoring his vital signs. There is blood loss. Should I release the seal?"

If she released the seal, he'd more than likely bleed out. Garrus wouldn't risk it.

"No. Keep him there." A backwards glance over his shoulder found most of the crew clustered around him. They'd all been entranced by the display, watching this little heat signature that had brought them all so much trouble. Above, they could hear the sounds of the asari technicians clearing out and working to repair what was left of the Commander's cabin. The viewing window above the Commander's bed had been blown out in the blast. If EDI had not thrown up a protective field, he and Shepard would have been sucked out into space with much of the debris. Anger bloomed inside him again.

"I'm going into the tunnels. He's near Jack's living space. We'll cut through and drag this bastard out." There were scattered nods. He didn't wait to see who followed him.

Once they reached the small area under engineering, it was easy to hear the pained moans and howls through the bulkhead. Garrus wasted no time in firing up the welding instrument on his omni-tool. He began to cut through with a single-minded focus.

Yeah, he was good and fired up now. Once he got this rat out, he was going to work him over. Have Mordin keep him alive, and try out some of the more creative interrogation techniques. Couldn't have Chakwas stabilize him. No. Had to have Mordin. The salarian was special tactics. Chakwas might object, might want to actually save his life. Garrus was surprised to find he was gnashing his teeth. He only cut enough of the bulkhead to create an inverted U shape, then he backed up and gestured at Jack.

"Pull it open."

"You sure, turian? The tattooed girl stepped forward, biotics already flaring around her body. She seemed half-amused.  
"Do it!" He snarled.

"Here we go!" She seemed happy to show off. She lit up then, like a Christmas tree. A biotic field burned around the flap of metal and began to bend outwards towards the group as she pulled back her fist. Jack gritted her teeth, and yanked.

The metal flap broke off with a scream and a groan, as if the Normandy herself was protesting this rough surgery. The steel gave, and Jack tossed it up and back, narrowly avoiding Miranda.

"A little more precision, please!" The clipped accent barked.

"Who said I was lacking in precision?" Jack smirked, the biotic flare already dying.

Garrus heard none of this. He was already tearing into the small space, beaming light form his omni-tool up and down the section of ductwork. He found his prize two feet from the hole. A bloody, sweating human male, groaning as he tried to pull his leg from underneath the heavy, airtight seal. The man turned his face towards the light, and Garrus felt surprise bloom in his chest.

"Ilardi?" He was confused, but rage was already replacing it. He barely registered EDI's voice and Miranda's reply. He was already moving down the seal to seize a handful of sweaty human hair.

"Garrus!" Miranda's voice echoed in the small space. She poked her head in, leaning hands against the edge of the metal. Garrus could feel her breath on his shoulder. "Shepard came conscious. She wants you."

Garrus paused, torn. Gods, he _really _wanted to rip this worm's head from his trunk. But Shepard….

"They moved her to the neurological ward of the Illium medical center." Miranda's voice was so gentle. It was tugging at him. "They think she's going to be okay. Traumatic brain injury, but she's already healing."

Garrus turned glowering blue eyes to her. "She's asking for me?"

Miranda's eyes went sad and soft. Her voice was even more so.

"We'll handle him. Put him in isolation. Mordin will get him ready for you to question. Go on."

In one swift motion, Garrus let go of the human. What the fuck was Ilardi doing here? No time. Nevermind. Had to go to Shepard. She wanted him there. Had to go.

He skittered out of the small space under engineering and was already on his way out of the Normandy.


	5. Chapter 5

The medical center on Nos Astra smelled like alcohol and sterility. When Garrus finally found himself in Shepard's room, he found her bound from head to sternum in bandages. Her face was swollen and discoloured in bruises. It terrified him, but he still drank her in. It was the fact that she was alive that was more important than anything else. The asari doctors said she had a severe concussion. Injury to her occipital lobes. She was having trouble with her vision, but it was mending. Not for the first time, Garrus whispered a silent blessing for Cerberus. If it wasn't for the cybernetics in her body, she would likely be dead, or a vegetable.

He started to move to her, when he noticed glowing bands of energy at her wrists and ankles. Probably, the emotional turmoil of the past ten hours was overloading him. Garrus snapped at the sight of those shimmering bands. His rage bubbled up and out, startling the poor asari nurse that was checking Shepard's dressings. He didn't quite mean to roar as he did. Raw emotion. He couldn't think. Couldn't string together sentences. Before he knew it, he was at Shepard's bedside, shoving away the nurse and slamming his fist on the console button that would release Shepard's restraints.

"No." He snarled. "No one restrains her."

"Sir, you can't..!" The asari nurse tried to pull him away, but she wasn't big enough. His shoulders were too high, providing poor leverage for the little nurse. Besides, he towered over her, and was shaking with rage. It wasn't until two strong sets of arms closed around his elbows that they were able to haul him away. Delicate eyelids began to flutter. Gods, how much painkiller did they have her on? Her eyes were glazed, but she struggled to open them when she saw him.

"Garrus!" Her voice was a mewl. Red went through Garrus's vision. He struggled. Had to fight. It wasn't any use though. Soon they had him in the hallway.

"Let me go!" He growled. "I know her."

The strong arms, which belonged to two turians in white armour didn't ease until he ceased struggling. Shepard's weak voice quieted down as the asari began to give her another dose of the strong painkiller.

"You know her, huh? Immediate family?" The voice was sarcastic, and belonged to a turian with markings similar to Garrus's own. From Palaven.

"No." Air shuddered into Garrus's lungs. He tried to calm himself; there was limited success. Common sense was finally starting to override primal emotion and instinct. "I apologize. I didn't expect to find her like that."

The two turians looked at each other. The other wore markings that Garrus knew he had seen before, but couldn't name for the life of him. Not-Palaven spoke up.

"Look, you need to calm down. It's easy to get worried, but here's the thing. In the neurological ward, it's immediate family only. What's your relation to this human?"

Garrus could sense that they knew who Shepard was, that they were enforcing a rule that was usually ignored because of her Spectre status and her name.

"Uh…" Garrus had an idea in a flash. But it would involve lying. He tossed a glance over his shoulder at Shepard's sleeping form. If he had lips, he would have been chewing on them.

His chest tightened. Fuck it. Fuck the rumors. Fuck them questioning his honour. His honour was a grey area lately.

"Shepard's my mate." He declared.

Surprise coloured with disgust lit up two turian faces. The turian not from Palaven gave a derisive snort.

"Since when do Vakarians mate with humans?"

_Well_. Colour Garrus surprised. He didn't think his face was _that_ well known. Broad shoulders raised and fell as if to say, 'Who the hell cares?'

"Ezmay is..very open-minded." The use of her first name seemed to stumble the two turians, but only for a second.

"So, if we check her neck, we'll find your marks?" The non-Palaven turian asked. He had a look on his face that Garrus didn't like. It was smug, accusing. Garrus didn't quite punch him, but he was suddenly a lot closer than he'd been before. They exchanged breaths. The non-Palaven was abruptly disconcerted.

"You touch her at your peril." A snarl escaped Garrus's mandibles. He started to feel confident that he'd made the lie work. He was _not_ in the mood to spend the next few hours on the Normandy, cooling his heels because he'd gotten thrown out of the hospital. "Since you're so bent on this voyeurism, I haven't marked her yet. She runs her ship military. Fraternization would destroy the discipline."

The language of discipline, honour…that they understood.

"Frankly, I'm not in the mood to deal with this." He started to move backwards towards Shepard's room. "You want to confirm this by _my mate_, feel free."

And the dice were tossed. Odds on them shaking Shepard awake and asking her things she wouldn't understand….one in one hundred thousand. Garrus placed his bet.

The two exchanged glances, then Palaven squared his shoulders.

"Very well. But one more outburst and we'll toss you out on your ass. Mate or no."

Gentlemen, we have a winner.

"You have my word." He spun on his heel, and barged right back in.

And there she was, sleeping quietly. Someone had nudged a comfortable chair near the bed, and he sank into it gratefully. Talons reached out and hooked the clear plastic tube feeding into Shepard's vein. He rolled it between his talons for a second, wondering what exactly they were feeding her and how long it would keep her out.

A sigh.

Now that his head was calmer, he realized the sleep was probably a good thing. The body repaired itself in sleep. With her enhancements, she might be up and around in a day or so if they kept her out like this. Surely the doctors had to have found out about all the cybernetics by now. Miranda had thrown a fit about taking her to a medical facility off of the Normandy, but the Normandy's med bay didn't have a neurological suite. Chakwas had insisted.

'_I'm sure she's not going to be the first cyborg they've ever seen, Miranda. Control yourself.'_

Garrus smirked, remembering the doctor's smooth voice. With a sigh, he let go of the IV tube.

For what felt like hours, he just stared at her. She wasn't the made-of-steel bitch when she was out. Drugged up and head screwed up, she was frighteningly vulnerable. He didn't know how long she was going to be asleep, but he wanted to be here when she awoke. Wanted her to know that if she called him, he would come. He began to sag in the chair. Eyes began to feel heavy. Wanted to be the first thing she saw when she woke up.

"When last I heard, Shepard had chosen Alenko." Garrus jerked his head up, towards the voice. "How has it come to pass that she has tied herself to you instead?"

Liara T'Soni stood before him, hands clasped and a small smile on her face.

There was no real explanation for why he'd never had much patience for Liara. He wasn't particularly pleased to see her now. No point in being rude, though.

"Alenko was too pretty. She wanted someone with battle scars." He hefted his chin at Liara. She seemed half-amused, which soured his mood.

"For that, she might have chosen any number of people." The asari drifted towards the foot of the bed, and laid her slight hand on the white blanket covering Shepard's feet.

"What do you want, Liara? You're selling information now. Are you running low on merchandise?" Garrus's response was a little more curt than he would have liked. Gods, he was starting to get a headache.

"I have always been fascinated with her." Liara's eyes focused now on the sleeping figure. "It's not surprising, really. She's one of those larger-than-life figures. One of those people that everyone either emulates or hates. Even those that hate her cannot deny the envy that lives in their hearts."

Garrus could have face-palmed. His headache went from 'uncomfortable twinge' to 'more than annoying.' Was she going to talk the information out of him?

"We can't help but worship her. We want to know everything we can about her. We want to be a part of her life, even if it means we're a spectator." Liara fixed her eyes back on Garrus. "I'm simply curious, Garrus. I give you my word that I will not trade information about you and the Commander. After all that she's done, she deserves that much. But I cannot help wanting to have a little piece of her life to savour in my own."

Garrus stared at her. What did she want him to say? Did she want him to spill everything? There was also the problem that he'd blatantly lied to the security officers.

"Ezmay's a pretty private person, Liara. There's got to be some boundaries." His eyes shifted away. Liara smiled.

"I see you are on a first name basis." Liara patted Shepard's foot. "The nurse who was in here before told me you were upset that Shepard was in restraints. It was only a precaution. It might have been her nervous system firing, but she kicked one of the nurses when she came around the first time."

He blinked. Looked away again. Focused on one of Shepard's hands.

"Liara, make yourself useful, will you? Can you find me information on Sean Ilardi? Human. Lived on Omega from birth. We'll be here for a few days…"

Now it was Liara's turn to blink.

"Yes, I'll find out what I can. But may I ask, what is your interest in him?"

"I'd prefer not to say right now." Garrus steepled his talons.

"Of course." Liara bowed her head. "I need to go anyway. I will contact you soon, then, with the information you requested. We'll arrange a suitable payment then."

"Payment!" He couldn't stop the word from bursting out of him.

Liara looked at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were narrowed. They had a dark, predatory glimmer than he'd never seen there before.

"Yes. Garrus, you understand, I must make no exceptions, even for friends."

The conniving bitch! It was a fine joke, calling them friends, but not _readily_ supplying information that she surely must have guessed is connected in some important way to Shepard. He was glad he'd never gone through with contacting Liara for information about Sidonis. She just would have stabbed him in the back sooner.

"You talk a good line!" He spat at her. "Wanting to keep a part of her for you. I don't know what changed you so much."

This was a lie. They both knew what changed her so much. What changed both of them. Garrus launched himself out of the chair, and started pacing around the room. The window offered a view of the Nos Astra spaceport, and Garrus stopped to look. He refused to look back at Liara. Silence stretched between them.

"Sean Ilardi tried to kill her. Put bombs in two parts of the ship. At least, we found him in the ductwork of the Normandy after two bombs went off. I haven't tortured him yet."

Now Garrus stole a glance at Liara's face. She was staring at Shepard's sleeping form.

"So, you want to beat around the bush, be coy about getting paid? That's fine. I don't think you could count yourself among her friends when you hold back information about a potential assassin's activities."

Liara ripped her eyes from Shepard and gazed at Garrus. She was still silent, still shocked. Her mouth was agape.

"I don't want to look at you anymore, Liara. It's time for you to leave. If you come through, you come through. If you don't, you don't." He stayed like that, staring out of the window until the smell of perfumed asari was gone and he heard her footsteps retreat out of the room.

Godamn, he was _tired._

_

* * *

_

_Shepard's eyes opened, blinked once, twice, and then she could focus. The turian lay beside her. She smiled. He was a contrast with the softness of her bed. His rough skin, hard plates settled on high-thread count cotton and beneath a down blanket. And he was asleep. _

_A soft, silent laugh. _

_She was done sleeping off the wine of the previous night. She wondered how long the turian would be out._

_Ezmay took the opportunity she had to simply explore him. He slept in his clothes, but she could still sit and examine him at her leisure. Gentle fingers went out to stroke over the blue tattoos on his face. She remembered somewhere hearing that turians considered other barefaced turians to be untrustworthy. No colony or homeworld would claim them. Vagrants. Maybe that was why turians still had so much distrust of humans. They wouldn't carry that over cross-culturally, would they?_

_It was bullshit anyway. She'd trust this turian anywhere, and she hoped that he felt the same._

_She stroked his face, went gently over his eyelids, over the plates on his nose, over where lips would have been if he were human, then let her fingers drift over his jaw back to the fringe on the back of his head._

_Garrus shuddered._

_Shepard blinked, snatching her hand away. Vibrant blue eyes cracked open and fixed on her._

"_You don't have to stop."_

"_I didn't mean to wake you up. We're still a few hours out from the Omega re—"_

_She stopped when Garrus's talons closed around her hand and brought her hand back up to his face. He placed her palm on his cheek, and turned his head so that he could smell at her wrist. The feel of air brushing against her skin as he smelled her made her shiver; make her skin go into gooseflesh. She let her fingers trail back down over the row of plates under his mandible, and fingerwalked back to the fringe behind his head._

_This time, he made a small, wordless sound. He moved suddenly, his arm sliding around her waist, talons coming to rest on the fleshy part of her ass. Neck bent to bury his face in the curve of her neck, against her collarbone. Shepard suddenly felt herself overwhelmed, suddenly focused exclusively on the turian. Omega drifted out of her mind on wave of raw lust. She was afraid to speak. If she spoke, he'd change his mind; he'd get all honourable and put an end to this._

_Her arms opened to him, welcoming him. He rolled her over onto her back, and dragged talons over her skin. The sensation made her shiver yet again._

_Her clothes, her uniform. How many of these did she have? He apparently didn't care. His claws slid under the hem of the shirt she wore, and hooked it. He pulled until his claw went through the fabric, and then he yanked. He split the entire shirt down the middle. The breath went out of her. She hadn't realized his claws were that sharp._

_He spoke. His voice was ragged, so rough. He sounded like he was having trouble getting the words out._

"_Take these off, or I'll destroy them too." As he spoke, he poked a claw into the fabric of the waistband of her uniform pants. The heat of his talon at her belly seemed to burn. Her fingers hurriedly undid the button, unzipped them. Garrus grabbed fistfuls of the waistband and jerked the garment down her legs when she raised up her hips. He threw her pants behind him without looking, eyes traveling over her body as if he didn't know what to look at first. She shrugged out of the remains of her top. Was he going to ruin her undergarments too?_

_He laid his talons on her stomach, and pushed her down. For a second, he sat there on his knees, looking at her. Had he done research? Was he disappointed by what he saw? She wasn't smooth and rounded like the asari and like human women. Her body was muscled, lean, little fat where fat should really be. The result of years of training, sparring, fighting, hard physical conditioning. Scars laced over her body. Old scars. She swallowed nervously._

"_I don't know what I was expecting, Shepard."  
"Ezmay." She lay still, looked up at him. "Call me by my name."_

"_The asari are decadent, fleshy." He said. She began to feel her heart sink. Something on her face must have betrayed the emotion, because he started and cupped her face._

"_No, don't look like that. I wasn't complaining. I like what your body looks like." He was close, nuzzling at her cheek. Ezmay's hands went over his talons and she closed her eyes._

"_I like what you are very much." He sounded hesitant. She wondered if he'd wanted to say something else. _

_There was silence. He stayed there, breathing in the smell of her hair. She let go of his talons and slid her hands back over the fringe on his head. He held his breath._

_She felt something lower on his body twitched against her thigh. She gasped, unprepared for how that simply little movement would curl warmth between her legs. _

_They were moving before she realized it. Garrus was sitting back and pulling at the sides of her panties. He stripped them off of her, and then gestured for her to sit up. She unhooked her bra, and tossed it to the side. He was out of his clothes. When had that happened? She couldn't remember. Knew only that her hands were frantically trying to touch all of him, knew that she was staring at his anatomy. Garrus gathered her up to him, an arm around her waist, another twined up her back. She wanted to kiss him so badly, had to settle for nipping and laying kisses along his mandibles, along the line of his neck. _

_They both did their research, apparently. She knew his waist, right along the underside of his ribcage was sensitive and she dropped little tickling motions here. Garrus growled deep in his throat. He'd freed an arm and was brushing his talons over her nipples, over the weight of her breasts. He seemed spurred on by the noises coming from Shepard. He touched everywhere. _

_One hand pushed her back down on the bed, and he spread her legs open. She was unsure of what was coming next until he rubbed his thumb over that sensitive little button of flesh between her legs. _

"_Oh….!" Her head went back. _

_He started working over that little nub. His claw was scraping against her as he moved his thumb, but she didn't mind. She felt his other talon begin to explore the folds of her flesh, gently parting the lips and testing the feel of the wetness on his skin. Shepard raised her head back up to look at him, and found him single-mindedly focused on what he was doing. His face seemed flushed, and when he looked back to her face, she saw a feral look in his eyes. _

_Still silent. He leaned up, moving between her legs. One hand wrapped around her waist. They both fumbled; he started to guide himself to her opening, she reaching to do the same. Somehow, they ended up laying hands on top of one another. She felt him start to slide in. All at once, she was glad for the heightened arousal, for the wetness. For a brief second, she was unsure if she was going to be able to accommodate him. _

_She heard Garrus groan deep in his throat; reflexively, she flexed those inner muscles. He gasped, and sank himself into her._

_Now it was her turn to gasp. She was so full that it was almost painful; in fact, she felt a small stinging as she stretched to accommodate him._

'_Now this is as intimate as it gets.' Shepard thought. 'Whatever else happens between us, we've done this…'_

"…_too much..?" Garrus was still gasping. She could tell it as taking a monumental effort on his part not to start tearing into her._

_Shepard buried her face in the angular line of his shoulders and neck._

"_No." She whispered. "It's wonderful."_

_This seemed to be all the permission that Garrus needed. He started moving, slowly at first, and then picking up speed. Their positioning was lucky; as their hips rocked together, she felt bursts of pleasure radiating through her entire body. Every thrust of his body into hers hit the sensitive nub that brought some much pleasure. It was overwhelming. She had to admit it was better than that night before Ilos._

_Garrus's talons curled under her shoulder blades and over her shoulders. He held her there, seemingly trying to crush her to him. Sharp, stinging pain told her that he was gripping too tight. A sense of heat, wetness on her shoulders. He was cutting her. _

_She moaned. That surge of heat and endorphins amplified the pleasure. Made her melt like butter._

_Garrus's hipped were slamming against her now. She tried to match his pace until she felt her climax coming on. She tried to whisper to him. Tried to tell him, but it only came out as strangled gasps and cries._

_Garrus growled against her neck. She felt him nip at her. Felt his thrusts become disjointed and uneven._

_He suddenly pushed as deep as he could. A low moan escaped him. Shepard squeezed her eyes shut. Fiery pain exploded in her shoulders._

_

* * *

_

He must have been asleep for a while. When he opened his eyes, Shepard was curled on her side, watching him. The bandages had been removed, and the bruises on her face and neck were already fading to purple-yellow. Her eyes crinkled up, a smile coming to her face. She licked her lips. Garrus found his mandibles flaring, his own turian version of a smile.

"Hey." She said.

"Hey." His voice felt dry and unused. A glance at the windows told him it was nighttime. The clock on the wall gave the time as just after midnight. He'd slept for about twelve hours, then. Shepard gestured to the bedside table.

"I'm parched. Could you hand me that water?" Garrus followed her gaze to the metal cup just out of her reach.

"Of course." He rose, feeling his body protest. Muscles were tense and achy from being in one position for too long. He helped Shepard sit up, and handed her the cup. She drank greedily.

"They say I can go back to the Normandy tomorrow."

"That soon?" He was surprised. Was she healing that fast?

"Yes. Apparently Cerberus pumped some good stuff into me."  
A silence stretched out as Shepard drained the cup and lay back in her bed. Garrus made a mental note to talk to Miranda. How could Shepard recover so fast from a _brain injury_ of all things? She'd been in the hospital for two days, and medical technology was capable of wonderful things but something was off.

"I dreamed about us." Shepard's voice ripped him from his reverie.

"Uh…"

Silence again.

"That night before we hit the relay." She clarified.

If turians could blush, he would have been scarlet. He'd be lying if he'd said that he'd forgotten that night. A feeling of possessiveness washed over him, but he suppressed it. He hadn't intended for that to happen, but Garrus couldn't help himself at the time. Unconsciously, his eyes swept to her throat and shoulders. He could still see the shiny, pink scar tissue through the neck of her hospital gown. Her hand went up and settled on the same pink scratches. He'd cut deep enough that they left marks.

"I had to lie to get in here." The confession burst out of him.

"Oh?" That line of downy hair above her eye rose. He'd learned that usually meant she was guarding her reaction until more information was given her.

"Um. You might get a lot of comments…uh…about mating…."

Amusement. Her saw the corner of her mouth twitch. She was trying to keep a straight face. Now, he was mortified.

"Garrus. What did you say?" Her hand dropped. She clasped her hands in her lap.

He looked away, started pacing. His talons came up to the back of his head as he searched for words.

"I came in at first, and they had you restrained, and I got upset. Well…I mean, a little more than upset." He turned to her, spreading his talons in a helpless gesture. "They were going to kick me out. I said the first thing I thought of that meant I could stay!"

"You said I was your lover?" She guessed. Quickly, Garrus shook his head.

"It's worse than that!"

"What could possibly be worse?"

"I said you were my mate, alright?" Now he was back to pacing. The waves of distress were rolling off of him. Complete humiliation.

"I assume you weren't meaning the friendly sort of mate."  
He shook his head. Shepard shrugged her shoulders. _That _surprised him.

"What? That doesn't bother you? That I lied about you?" He was incredulous. Any turian woman would have lost her mind by now.

"Garrus, you need to keep in mind that humans don't have quite the same hang ups that you turians do."

Ah, yes. There was an element in turian society that claimed humans had no honour or integrity. Their willingness to lie when the purpose suited gave them a bad name, among other things. But he knew Shepard wasn't like that. She didn't lie about the important things. Was this unimportant, or did she have other reasons?

"C'mere." She held out a hand. Reluctantly, Garrus move to the bed and clasped it.

"I'll clarify everything if you want me to." He offered.

"If you want to. It doesn't matter to me." She patted his hand with her free one. "Garrus, you and I both know the nature of our relationship. What other people think doesn't matter."

Garrus barked out a short, curt laugh.

"Doesn't it? You have no idea what turians say about humans who're mated to turians. I saw it in the faces of the security personnel who were threatening to remove me."

"You know I'm not the kind of person who gets worked up over the opinions of idiots. Mate is a bit permanent, but I think it might be time for us to talk about where exactly this thing between us is headed."

Confusion set in.

"Commander, I was just trying to warn you…"

"Let's cut the bullshit, Garrus. And quit calling me Commander when we're not in front of the crew. We both know how you've changed since the Normandy blew up. We both know you're not afraid of a little lie when the implications are harmless."

Silver fringe went shadowed as he hung his head.

"What's really bothering you is that you put an official name on this thing between us and it scares the holy hell out of you that you might be acting presumptuously." She shook her head. "You silly, honourable bastard. You're afraid to speak for me."

"Well, then, what is this thing? The crew knows. It's not like we've been being too discreet." He turned away and paced. She was right, of course. It infuriated him. He thought he was past being so damn bound by codes of conduct, but there it was.

"Garrus, do you know why you're my second in command? I'll give you one guess."

"I know what you're getting at, Shepard."

"Ezmay." She corrected him. "I don't think you do. You're my second because I can trust you to catch the things I miss. I can trust you to have my back, and that includes speaking for me when I can't. I needed you here. You did what you had to in order to make that happen."

The rails of the bed brushed up against his knees as he wandered back over to her. Outside, the night was still as inky black as it had been when he'd awoke. It surprised him that they'd only been talking about this for a few minutes. It felt like hours.

"But you're not entirely free yet." He countered.

"Free from what?" Now it was her turn to be confused. "You mean Alenko?"

Shepard looked incredulous. She opened and closed her mouth, before speaking again. "Alenko threw me away with both hands. Have you been waiting to make sure you weren't a rebound?"

He didn't know the word. His visor told him it was a term related to human sports. Did she mean he was catching her as she came off of the backboard? He had to assume.

"I'm not fucking around here, Ezmay." His voice came hot and forceful. Ire was rising in him. "I'm not an easy lay and I'm not going to treat you like one either. We've been tiptoeing around each other for a while now, and neither of us have defined what we are. I'm not saying it has to be permanent, but you need to tell me how it's going to be."

Gods, was he really up in her face, demanding this of her? She seemed perfectly calm.

"I thought I'd made it clear when we had sex." She said quietly. "I don't do casual stuff. I told you…I wanted _you_."

That took the wrathful wind out of his sails. The words soothed him. If she were any other woman, he'd probably still be angry. A leg crooked back, spur hooking on the leg of the chair and he dragged it closer so that he could sit leisurely and hold Shepard's hand at the same time.

"So, if Alenko reappears in six months and wants you back, I get to beat him to a bloody pulp?" He asked. He was ready for the tension to be over. Ready to laugh. He groped blindly towards mirth. The grin on Shepard's face did not disappoint.

"If you can beat me to the punch, then I suppose."

Garrus closed his eyes and eased back into the chair. It felt good to relax. It felt good to sit here with her hand in his talons and know that she was his for the moment. This warrior goddess chose him for real and above all. When he opened his eyes again, Shepard was drifting in semi-slumber.

"Goodnight." She whispered.

"Goodnight, Ezmay."


	6. Chapter 6

"Officer on deck!"

Yeoman Chambers' replacement had a voice that seemed to carry to all corners of the Normandy. The Cerberus crew came to a semblance of attention, boots scrapping on the metal grating. Shepard was still bruised, still walked with a bit of stiffness in her right hip, but her face was calm. Soon enough, she'd be her old, deadly self again. At her right elbow, Garrus stood tall. The official declaration of things between them had changed how he walked; how he carried himself. For the first time in a long time, something was going right. It alleviated some of the deadly, pessimistic edge about him. Gave him a sort of self-assurance that made him more controlled, more dangerous. Jacob saluted. Miranda stared on like a statue. Thane stood with his arms crossed. If the crew noticed Garrus's conspicuous position, they did not comment.

He was admittedly eager to get into the brig and do some arm-twisting. So was his fierce, fiery mate.

"Lately, people seem to think they can fuck with me." Shepard had said. "Just another poor soul in need of enlightenment."

His mandibles had flared in amusement and approval. He liked predatory Shepard.

"At ease." Shepard said.

The vibrant blue eyes caught Jack's toothy smile; she stared bold-faced at the proximity Garrus held to Shepard. He ignored it. Miranda approached with a datapad.

"Commander, we took the liberty of doing some preliminary data gathering on our guest." A wave of Miranda's slim hand brushed away Garrus's scowl. "No worries, Officer Vakarian. We didn't question him directly. We saved that for you. Actually, Dr. T'Soni sent us a brief dossier. Easy enough to go from there."

_Interesting_. Garrus thought.

"How brief?" Shepard asked. She gripped the datapad as she spoke, fingers skimming over the surface, eyes skimming the data.

"Well, it's certainly not exhaustive. But it was enough to get us started." The white fabric of Miranda's suit was starting to look dingy. Had they all been as worried as Garrus had been? The entire crew needed some downtime. People were starting to talk about debarking permanently at Illium.

"Well, it was the least Liara could do." Garrus murmured.

Miranda began to recite information. He could have repeated it with her verbatim.

"Sean Ilardi, age 25. Born on Omega. Lived and schooled there." Miranda peered over the top of the datapad to check her place. "Until he dropped out at 14."

"Took to the alleys, became an errand boy for the gangs of Omega before Aria took over." He took over, reciting with a bored air, as if he were reciting his alphabet. "Found himself without a job when Aria took over because he lacked the competence she demanded. What, exactly, did Liara give us that was _new_?"

"Um, well, he tried his hand at being a hit man. Failed. Let an important mark get away. Had to give his employers a couple of fingers by way of saying sorry."

"Well, then." Garrus said. This was new indeed. Poor bastard.

"Disappeared off the grid for a few years. No financial summaries, no history of customs checkpoints in the known traverse. Then he just pops up on the Citadel. Psych profile is different. Gets picked up for assaults, a rape, a murder that they couldn't pin on him. He's not just a fuck-up anymore. He's actually got a little panache."

This, Garrus remembered. Ilardi's cases never came his way when he worked at C-Sec, but he knew the trouble that Ilardi have given the officers assigned to the case.

"So, how did he come to be on my ship?" Irritation had begun to creep into Shepard's voice. She wasn't finding any of this particularly helpful.

"Nothing in Dr. T'soni's file mentions a vendetta against Shepard."

"Who says it's a grudge against her?" Suddenly, Jack was a part of the conversation. "There's other people on this ship that's pissed people off."

Miranda looked thoughtful.

"The viewing window in your cabin was a structural weakness, Commander. A big enough blast could have split the Normandy wide open."

"But it wasn't a big enough blast. This Ilardi clown may have learned how to kill a little bit better, but he's an amateur when it comes to explosives. Or whoever built the bomb is, if it wasn't him. Either way, it wasn't enough."

Shepard waved the datapad.

"As it is, this is stuff we need to be asking him. Anything else I should know?"

"Yeah." Jack spoke up.

The three of them gaped at her. This tattooed girl who'd stood silently now crossed her arms, suddenly looked defensive.

"I didn't say it at the time, but I ran into Ilardi once. Before I got taken to Purgatory. Worked with him on a job. Cold as a viper. He was running with turians at the time."

"What?" Miranda's voice was coloured with shock, and behind that, a hint of rage. "Why didn't you volunteer this before?"

"Calm down, princess. I wanted to be sure before I spoke up."

"Right. You're probably in on it, aren't you? You got bored and decided to blow us up for fun!"

"Knock this shit off!" The roar from Shepard silenced both of them. "I'm sick of having to break you two up every two weeks. Jack, are you being straight up with me?"

Anger was there. Jack was flaring slightly with biotic power, giving her skin a light blue sheen.

"Yeah, I'm being fucking straight. I'm on this ship too, you know. What fucking good would it do me to get it destroyed?"

Momentarily amused, Garrus slid a talon along Shepard's elbow. He saw her glance at him from the corner of her eye.

"It's sound logic." He pointed out.

"Right then." Shepard moved suddenly, as if bursting out of hibernation. "Thank you, Jack. Let's get down there and find out what this guy knows. Dismissed."

As Miranda and Jack fell away, Garrus turned to face the Commander. Her face was just as predatory now as it had been leaving the hospital earlier. It was…intriguing. He wondered if they could make a stop in a secluded area of the ship first. But no. The urge to kill was burning through his veins.

"What are you thinking?" Her voice interrupted his thoughts. When his eyes unclouded and focused back on Shepard, there was a hint of a grin at the corner of her mouth.

"Just..I like that look on your face. When you've got a target in sight." Did his voice betray too much emotion? It sounded rougher. What had started as a hint of a grin on Shepard's face now became a full, toothy smile.

"Maybe I'll target you later, but first things first."

A sigh.

"It's a shame. I'm feeling rather nasty right now." His shoulders sagged; an exaggerated show of disappointment.

"You'll control yourself somehow. However, I'm not feeling particularly merciful." She paused and thought, patted at her side to confirm that she had her sidearm. "Get me a bucket of water. He's still in the brig?"

"Yeah. Why? Did you have something else in mind?"

"Yes. Blindfold him and put him in one of the airlocks. Get me a chair."

"Going rough on this one?"

When she looked up, the expression on her face was no longer predatory. It was downright murderous.

"Alliance regulations forbid physical torture, but that doesn't mean I can't scare the hell out of him."

"You're not Alliance anymore, Shepard."

"Old habits die hard."

Garrus reached out and touched a talon to her wrist. She turned her hand, clasping her fingers around his before breaking away. They moved on to their respective tasks. It was nice, Garrus thought, to have that that burning touch to carry with him as a touchstone.

The temperature in the airlock, according to EDI was 47˚ Fahrenheit. Ilardi was seated, his crushed leg set in a brace and propped before him on a short stool. He was blindfolded and cuffed to the chair. Total silence surrounded him, but he was still breathing heavily. He'd been blindfolded and brought down here. It was bloody cold and the chair was uncomfortable. The amplified sound of the ships engines told him he was closer to the vacuum of space than before. Shepard had ordered them to depart from Illium; they had errands on the Citadel, and she needed to check in with Councilor Anderson. Besides…she didn't want to be in dock when the interrogation went down. She didn't know how pissed off she'd get. Didn't know if she was going to blow him out of the airlock on principle. Garrus was quite happy to, as a matter of fact. Some bleeding hearts would cry out that Ilardi'd had a hard life, that he had been predisposed to violence and crime by shitty parents. He understood that, but it seemed to him that the line dividing compassion and condemnation had been drawn somewhere around the time that he'd reappeared on the Citadel.

Shepard sat, continually clicking the safety on her pistol on and off. Beside her, Garrus stood. Leaned nonchalantly against the wall of the airlock. Stared at Ilardi. Ezmay didn't want to have to resort to some of the more torturous psychological methods to get the information out of him; Garrus feared that it was going to have to come to that. EDI was keeping a display lit beside them that showed Ilardi heartbeat, blood pressure, and respiration. They were all elevated, but not nearly enough for Garrus's liking.

Ilardi had heard the airlock doors open, heard the booted footsteps come in, heard them sit, and the doors close behind them. Silence, besides the sound of the engines. They were all cautiously waiting.

Shepard chambered a round; they were blanks, but Ilardi didn't have to know that. As she did this, she stood suddenly. Grabbed a handful of greasy hair and yanked his head back. The muzzle of the pistol pressed against Ilardi's adam's apple. Garrus noted with a small bit of satisfaction that Ilardi's heartbeat sped up a little bit.

"Do you know where you are?" She asked him.

"The airlock, I'd imagine." Ilardi's voice was raspy.

"Close. The airlock on _my ship_, which you tried to destroy." The muzzle of the gun pressed closer into his throat. Garrus could see Ilardi's adam's apple bounce as he swallowed.

"Guess I'll have to try again." Ilardi grinned, the blindfold shifting up a smidge. Shepard jerked her head towards Garrus.

His footsteps echoed louder than hers; he took two steps forward, and kicked the stool out from underneath Ilardi's wounded leg. The man's heel came down sharply, sudden, hitting the floor. A yelp ripped out of Ilardi. The bloodlust in Garrus's heart was momentarily sated. If Shepard was going to use him to inflict pain on Ilardi, that was fine by him. He weighed the possibility of all the lives ending on the Normandy against the physical pain caused to Ilardi and felt it was a fair bargain.

"Let me lay this out for you. I'm not going to tolerate any of your bullshit answers. If you fuck with me, you're going to suffer for it. I'd really rather not have to hurt you anymore, but I'm not going to lose any sleep if it comes to that."

"You're not going to shoot me." Ilardi gave her another smile.

Shepard raised the gun from his throat, and fired right over his head, aiming towards the airlock door. The shot was catastrophically loud. Even though he knew it was coming, Garrus jumped. Ilardi jumped. God_damn_, it echoed.

"You crazy bitch!" The prisoner didn't look quite so cavalier now; in fact, he seemed downright pissed. "You're going to decompress the entire ship."

"The Normandy has reinforced plating and protective fields that go up in the span of a heart beat. I will shoot you if I want to, but right now, I don't really want to. What I want is to see you suffer. You better start convincing me not to."

"Fuck you, you ball-busting bitch. I ain't telling you shit."

"Fair enough."

Shepard moved back, righting the stool and putting the metal bucket on it. She nodded to Garrus, and then turned her back.

It was…repulsive, how greasy this man's hair was. It felt like he hadn't cleaned it in _months_. Garrus grabbed a great handful, and slammed Ilardi face-first into the bucket.

Techniques like this….He'd never done before. The interrogations at C-Sec never got physical. He was entirely dependent on Shepard for how long to keep Ilardi down, so his eyes never left Shepard's form. Ilardi struggled, feet beating against the floor, yes, even the injured leg moving. Twenty seconds went by….thirty.

Two sharp upwards nods, and he jerked Ilardi back out of the water. Coughing, gasping. Ilardi heaved up a great mouthful of water and leaned forward. He battled for air.

"Why did you try to blow up my ship?" Shepard asked. She still didn't look back.

"Fuck you."

"Down." She said to Garrus. Her voice had the perfect mixture of boredom and flippantness. And down Ilardi went again.

Talons and claws began to dip into Ilardi's skin. Garrus tried not to squeeze too hard, but he was swift losing his patience and they were only ten minutes in.

"Bring him up." Again, they repeated the coughing and gasping. Ilardi retched, bringing up more water. The sodden blindfold came off, and Garrus kicked it out of the way. Sandy blond hair dribbled water into Ilardi's grey eyes. He blinked, still gasped, looking at Shepard and then Garrus.

Then he started to laugh, devilishly delighted. Shepard lit a cigarette, still the model of "who gives a fuck?" and turned to face him.

"Oh, ha ha. _That_ is rich."

Garrus couldn't resist it. He took one step and smacked Ilardi as hard as he could. Blood flew and spattered on the deck. He expected Shepard would say something to him, but she only stood and watched, smoking calmly.

"Why did you try to blow up my ship?" She asked again.

"Everyone said you were butch. I said, no way. That there's a woman that'll spread her legs for anyone."

Rage turned Garrus's vision white. He struck again, and again. It was a damn shame…a godamn shame that Shepard's hand came down on his shoulder. He had to stop. Had to stop or he was going to kill him.

_Your ass is mine_, he said inwardly.

"Why did you try to blow up my ship, Sean?" A ring of smoke floated, settled in Ilardi's face. Did it not bother her to be called a slut? Garrus was still gnashing his teeth.

"Looks like you will fuck anything." Ilardi jerked his head towards Garrus, sloshing water that direction. He leaned and spat blood on the floor.

"Fine. Dunk him again."

_With pleasure_.

Garrus grabbed him and slammed him back into the water.

Twenty seconds, thirty, forty. He counted. At fifty-two Shepard gestured to let him up.

Ilardi gasped, rasping in air, spitting out water. He sagged in the chair. Ezmay finished her cigarette and flicked into the bucket.

"I can do this all day." She said.

"…thought…" A cough.. "…you gonna…get bored." A gasp.

"You know what? You're right. I'm already bored. Garrus, let's just space this fucker. We can find out what we need to know from our other prisoner."

A glimmer of real fear came into Ilardi's eyes. Garrus leaned and uncuffed Ilardi's hands, braced a foot against the chair and shoved. Ilardi went down in a crumpled heap. His leg prevented him from moving at a pace any faster than a crawl. Shepard touched the door button and stepped out of the airlock. The turian followed, stepping over Ilardi as he went.

"Wait…Shepard…"

"Fuck you, Ilardi. We're done here." Shepard didn't look back. She paused at the door panel, kicking a boot against the threshold to shake water from her foot. Garrus followed, taking his same pose against the bulkhead. Was she really going to go through with it? She was bluffing; she had to be. There wasn't any other prisoner. She'd once told Thane's son that a hostage was only safe as long as he was valuable. She had to be working on Ilardi's fear here. Interesting. He had no idea that Ilardi was afraid of deep space. Or maybe it was death?

Shepard touched the door panel, closing the airlock behind her. To open the outer hatch, she'd have to cycle the air and then confirm, since they weren't docked. Ilardi screamed as the inner door shut.

"EDI, sound an alarm in the airlock so he thinks we're getting ready to cycle him out."

"Yes, Commander."

Through the thick steel, they could hear a slight echo of a klaxon.

"I have to admit, this is…" Garrus started. Actually, he was at a loss. Torture ran counter to his honour and sense of right and wrong. At the same time, Ilardi was scum, through and through. And they hadn't really hurt him that much.

There was a pounding sound on the other side of the bulkhead.

"It's sick. I already need a shower." There wasn't any trace of amusement or nonchalance in Shepard's eyes now. Her eyes were cold green gems.

" I think he's going to spill." He tried to reassure her.

"Oh, I'm sure he will. EDI, shut off the alarm. Open the inner door."

When the door opened, Ilardi was right there, gasping and honest-to-god crying. He'd crawled against the wall. Garrus's nose wrinkled with distaste; Ilardi had wet himself.

"What?" Shepard sounded supremely irritated now.

"Zael Holinth. Contacted me. Gave me the bombs. Got me on the ship on Omega. Told me where to put the bombs. Paid me a lot of money."

Garrus's blood ran cold.


	7. Chapter 7

A silver-skinned turian stood before him. He could tell from the curve of the waist that she was female, and there was something about _this_ particular female that made his blood sing and stir. From the way her spurs moved when she took a step, to the way her hips swayed. Breathe caught in Garrus's throat as she turned her head. Her fringe was lighter silver than the rest of her, and made her look haloed and ethereal. Her eyes were fiery green, and Garrus's heart swelled with pride to see the blue marks of his home world of Palaven on her face. They were a replica of his. This one was his; soon she would be heavy with child and he would take his place as shaper and molder of this new turian life.

When she spoke, there was something off. It was her voice; Shepard's voice. That by itself did not give Garrus pause. It was the quality of her voice. It was raspy, strangled. Like liquid was drowning her vocal cords.

"Garrus, I found Zael."

When she opened her mouth to speak again, bright blue blood welled out and dripped down her mandibles. The light went out of her eyes. Silver skin began to fade into grey before his eyes. Turian Shepard bent doubled and more blood erupted from her. It pooled around her, and the puddle began to swell outward. Garrus took a step back as the blood touched his boots.

"No." He said. He felt his heart tearing. She was dying. Again, she was dying.

"Garrus!" She whispered as she sank to the floor. "I found Zael…!"

He looked down and found human hands on his shoulders. They shook him.

"Garrus!"

His head lolled, and suddenly, he was in the forward battery of the Normandy. He blinked. Above him stood the slim, muscled human that he found himself obsessed with. Shepard bent with her hands on his cowl. Sleep still wanted to keep his eyes shut, but he forced them open.

"You were really out."

"Uh, yeah." He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs out. Damn. He must have been sleeping like the dead. "I'm sorry. You said…"

"I found Zael. I've got a trail on her, at least. Liara contacted me. She said that Zael'Hollinth was last on the Citadel, actually. She's in the Crowen Ward. Apparently she had business."

Crowen Ward. Garrus's mind starting turning and he felt his body responding by wakening faster. On a station as massive as the Citadel, one might live in one ward and never get to see the other. It was like living on one side of a country and never making it to the other coast. Crown had not been his particular jurisdiction. He'd been assigned to the Lower Wards, the Presidium, and Zakera on occasion. Crowen was human-dominated. It had gained the affectionate nickname, Little Earth. Turians had been advised not to eat anything there on a visit, but that the shopping was great. It also had vicious gang activity, a black market slave trade, and had been home of many, many human politicians. Garrus told Shepard all this.

"Yeah, I know." Her hands slid down Garrus's shoulders to his talons. She gripped them and helped him stand. "That's why you're coming with me. I mean, you being there is usually a given anyway, but I need my best shot at my side."

"How close are we?"

"Just a couple of hours out. I told everyone to let you sleep. You try to fool me and pretend that you're just fine, but I can see sleep deprivation when I look at you." Shepard's fingers were still laced through Garrus's talons. He couldn't understand how he once thought that humans had too many fingers. Her hands seemed just fine now. Embarrassment came over him.

"I'm that obvious?" If he'd had human lips, it would have been a sheepish smile on his face. Shepard found she was starting to understand his facial expressions better, though. She understood the very slight flaring of mandible (embarrassment), compared to the wide flaring (shock or mirth, context-dependant).

"I know what to look for." Her lips twisted into a smile.

Suddenly, all the fears, the worry of the past week solidified in his gut. This was a most unsettling feeling, being so out of control of the situation. He didn't like it. Usually when things went again him, he met them head on and dealt with them with ruthless efficiency. Being involved with Shepard complicated things in a way that he didn't quite know how to deal with. For fuck's sake, he was having dreams about her dying. He didn't know how the connection with the bombings, but here Shepard was, rushing headlong into danger and laughing at the hazardous nature of it all. It was that devil-may-care spirit that made Garrus's blood sing in delight, and it was that nature that could get her killed. So it came down to either letting the worry consume him, or joining her in her insane race through life. He chose the latter.

Garrus's arms came up, swinging as he turned and threw his legs over the edge of the cot. He caught her, grasped her, and cradled her as he stood. Shepard was confused for a moment, but he saw the comprehension dawn and heard the laughter explode from her. He set her roughly on the control console of the main battery. Shepard looked down to her right, and tapped the button that would shut the panel down from inadvertent key strokes. It was a good thing; Garrus's talons were already sliding beneath her and grasping at the fleshy curves of her ass. It was still a strange thing, learning the curves of her human body, but it was a delight to him each time. The novelty of finding softness and silken skin where there would usually be plates, and rough, leathery hide. The otherness of her….was this what the first few turians felt when coming into contact with human women? It was a quiet, seemingly shameful part of turian past, that initial fascination with human women.

He was already nuzzling at her throat, nipping at the sensitive skin of her shoulders; his talons were kneading at her flesh. Garrus nearly crushed Shepard to him; her fingers were trailing along his fringe, along the sensitive skin just under his ribcage. When she touched him like that….holy hell. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, and he surprised himself by letting go of her, and savagely attacking the closures of her uniform jacket. Had to be careful; couldn't rip it open like last time. Her own hands were slipping down to open the zips and the buttons of his pants. His talons found her breasts about the same time that Shepard managed to get her hands down his pants. A moan ripped out of Garrus as she wrapped her fingers around his shaft. It was nearly impossible to resist spreading her legs and taking her right on the console; in fact, he did resist the urge just long enough to nuzzle at her breasts, and rub his thumbs over the sensitive nipples.

His arm went around her ribcage, and lifted her up so that he could yank her trousers down her legs. How had her pants gotten undone? No matter. It didn't matter. Shepard kicked off the dress boots and trousers. Garrus found she was already aroused; he didn't need to worry that he'd gone too fast. He could smell the warm, earthy smell of her arousal.

"I…." Didn't have time to murmur the apology. She was clasping him close, arms and legs wrapped around him. Garrus forced his erection between the folds of her hot flesh, groaning as the feel of her wetness embraced him once more. That was it; he took her right there on the console for the main guns. He was glad she'd clicked off the control panel. He would be embarrassed to have the technical staff busting in to check out why the thanix cannon was firing, and find him gaining some very carnal knowledge of their Commander on the controls for the guns.

He thrust into her, spurred on by the sounds being ripped from her throat, the feeling of her breasts pressed up against him, by the smell of her hair and the full redness of her lips. She was warm and pulsing around him, driving him to distraction. There wasn't anything else he thought of, other than the pleasure of taking Ezmay, the pleasure of _pleasuring_ Ezmay. He cupped her ass with his talons once more, and relished the feeling of the warm flesh. Felt her muscles flexing beneath, felt the strength of her taking as much from him as he from her.

His thrusts became jagged, and he groaned into her throat. It took all his strength not to tear into her flesh as he had before. Didn't want to leave more scars on her body. Ezmay let loose with a low, muffled wail as her inner muscles seized around him. He couldn't contain himself anymore; He slammed one last, forceful thrust between Ezmay's thighs, and spent himself within her. His knees nearly buckled.

Neither of them moved. Ezmay had leaned her forehead against his shoulder. He could smell her sweat-soaked hair tickling against his cheek. Garrus couldn't believe he'd once been so shy around her. Couldn't believe the awkwardness of their first encounter. Now he felt like himself. She brought out the strong side of him. Gingerly, he scented the air. No smell of blood, which was a good thing.

"I'm not complaining…" Shepard said into his shoulder, voice husky. "But what brought that on?"

"Just working out some stress." He trailed a claw up along her spine, and felt very pleased with himself when she shuddered. Another surprise to him, how sensitive her skin was. It was like she had an all-over erogenous zone.

Shepard raised her head and looked at him. Perspiration was glinting along her forehead; her cheeks were pink from exertion and excitement. Garrus was very pleased with that.

_That's me. I did that. _He thought.

"What were you stressed about?" Were her lips always this red? Not for the first time, Garrus wished he had lips he could press against them. Instead, his claw moved from her back to thumb over that red flesh. Shepard smiled beneath his talon.

"You know how I worry." He said. He felt his lower extremity begin to calm and recede. It was easier to slip out of her now, but he still stayed pressed against her body. "I've been wrestling with my more protective instincts."

"We're an unstoppable badass team." Ezmay's voice was soft. She caressed her own thumb over Garrus's scars. He rubbed against her touch, and gave her the equivalent of a turian smile.

"I should let you get dressed." Already, his hands were moving to tug her shirt back up, and close the opening of her jacket. "Can't let the crew see that I've been insubordinating the commanding officer again."

"You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"It's our private joke." He said, lazily amused. "I expect to be able to lord it over you as long as we're together."

_As long as we're together. _ There it was. An unofficial declaration that this thing between them was becoming more formalized and permanent. Shepard didn't protest. Garrus knew her; she would say something if it got on her nerves. There was a bond and officiality between them now. Hell, most everyone who wasn't blind and deaf knew it within twenty minutes of encountering them. Shepard rolled the words over in her head, and found that it suited her just fine. It felt comfortable and right to her, to belong to Garrus.

The two dressed, the moment between them fading into the same well-oiled machine that had served as the foundation for trust and respect between them. They went from lovers to teammates in the breathe of a few seconds. Even though Garrus arrogantly watched her body as she dressed, and even though she watched him cover himself and redo his pants, they were talking once more about bigger things.

"Why are you so worried about Zael? Don't hide anything from me. I want to know what you think."

"Just picture all the bad, nasty stuff that can happen to a person in the galaxy, and Zael will have her hands in it somewhere. She's like the Shadow Broker, but worse. There's stuff even _he_ won't sully his hands with. She doesn't care. If you want it or need it, she can make it happen. For a price. Ilardi's apparently one of her tools, uses people like him to get her jobs done. He's a good pick because he's expendable. He evidently thought that the bombs were no threat to the integrity of the hull. And they weren't- in the places they were put."

"So, we go in prepared for the worst."  
"You're ruthless enough. I just want to know who else you're bringing with us when we go to find her."  
"I'm thinking Grunt. I have this feeling we're going to find ourselves in a firefight, and I'm thinking I want a heavy hitter on our side."

"No biotics?" Garrus tilted his head. Usually, Shepard tried to balance things out a little more. It sounded like she was going with sheer brute force this time.

"No. Samara's debarking at the Citadel. Jack's acting petulant; I don't know why, but I don't want her mood swings guarding my back. I have Jacob and Miranda holding down the fort, so to speak. They're not especially powerful biotics anyway, and like I said, I want a heavy-hitter for this op."

"Thane?"

Shepard was quiet for a second.

"Thane's in the med bay. Nothing severe, but that whole dying thing? I think it's starting to manifest."

Surprise and sorrow surfaced in Garrus. The assassin was usually quiet and standoffish; he'd been a bit more contemplative than usual. He had nothing against Thane. In the days when Shepard was still trying to assemble her team for the trip through the Omega 4 relay, Yeoman Chambers had mentioned to Garrus how mooney-eyed Thane looked around Shepard. That didn't sit well with Garrus, but evidently, things didn't pan out between the assassin and the Commander. It surprised him to find out that while he'd been sleeping, Thane had had a coughing fit that had produced vile orange phlegm and a bout of exhaustion.

"Dr. Chakwas says he's resting, that he'll recover eventually, but that he's not to be in action for a while."

It was coming to pass; Shepard's team was starting to lose people. Garrus pulled her against him for a moment. Her arms squeezed him, and then she stepped away. The mask that hid Ezmay and made her the Commander slipped over her features. Once more, she was the battle-hardened valkyrie.

"Get ready." She said. "We've got a shady character to capture and interrogate."


	8. Chapter 8

A/N- I just wanted to thank everyone who's read and reviewed. It's nice to be doing some recreational writing and it makes my day that you all are liking it so much.

****

Little Earth smelled like a million different spices, like smoke and sweat, like flowers and steel. Garrus noticed as the Commander took in a deep breath when they stepped out of the transport shuttle. It might have been unconscious on her part at first, but soon she fell into naming smells and scents she had not smelled in a very long time.

"Clove. Roses, Jasmine." Her eyes flew open wide, and she looked around frantically. "Holy hell! That's wasabi! Cayenne. Mmmm…saffron. I've got such the urge for some paella right now."

"Paella?" Garrus saw Grunt smelling the air too. He himself couldn't name these scents as efficiently as Shepard. Instead, he smelled a mélange of pleasant, pungent smells. His favourite was a particularly sweet one that Shepard identified as nutmeg. She pointed to a bakery on Garrus's right where all sorts of good smells were coming from.

"I suspect you've got a sweet tooth, Vakarian. Not surprising, since science says you're made of candy." Shepard studiously avoided his eyes. Blue neon was reflected in her eyes, and Garrus found himself charmed. Candy? Dextro-amino acids were sweet to the human palate?

"I am not made of candy."

Behind them, Grunt laughed.

"You could always just lick him and find out, Shepard."

If Garrus's face could have coloured, it would have. It was one thing to know that the crew knew about his relationship with Shepard. It was another to get teased about it.

"Can't. Mordin said not to ingest." Already, Shepard was wandering away. She'd sighted a kiosk with a lighted map display.

"Bad luck for you, turian." Grunt slid a sidelong glance at Garrus, and laughed once more. For a moment, Garrus had a flashback of Wrex. The younger krogan was amusing enough, but Wrex's levity and perpetual mood swings between amusement and murder was missed.

"Whatever." They came up behind Shepard, who was tracing a finger along the map. "Did you find where we need to be?"

"Yes. The Revenant lounge. Jesus, how macabre."

Garrus's attention flicked momentarily to his visor, which politely told him that the word revenant was from an old Earth language called French, and that it meant a ghost, or a wraith, but translated literally as 'returning.' He had to agree with Shepard. Turians would never name a social gathering place after something death-related.

"We going or not?" Grunt asked behind them.

"Yeah, we're going."

Any other day, and they might have spent the day dashing in and out of various stores. Shepard wasn't usually this easily distracted, but Garrus suspected there was something about Earth that demanded the attention of humans. This little patch of Earth here on the Citadel seemed just as attention-getting. He saw her eyes dart to a shop that was nearly stuffed with model ships. Another shop that caught her fancy had linens in various shades and hues. He filed this information away for future reference, and followed the Commander through the passageways of Little Earth.

The Revenant was on the edge of the industrial district, and boasted all the according charm one could expect of a nightclub operated out of a burned-out warehouse. The thud of the bass beat jarred Garrus's bones and reverberated all the way up his spine. He saw Grunt shaking his head. Shepard paused, and simply watched the crowd milling outside the entry way.

"I think we're going to be a little conspicuous." She said.

"So we don't go in the front door." Garrus shrugged. He didn't plan on shucking out of his armor and putting on some of the more outlandish getup he saw before him, just to get in the door.

"Places like this got back entrances, don't they?" Grunt asked. His head twitched to the right, indicating a gangway that service staff might use.

"Yeah, that'd do." Shepard eyed the service entry. "But I'm thinking something even a bit more surreptitious."

Garrus knew what she was thinking, and moved away from the group. Shepard and Grunt followed unbidden. He led them down the passageway, away from Revenant, and found what he was looking for.

Every ward in the Citadel had an interconnected network of tunnels that the keepers used as they went about their business of maintenance. No one but technical workers ever bothered to enter the tunnels, and Garrus was willing to bet that there wasn't going to be anyone there. They'd arrived in Little Earth at just the right time for businesses around them to be closing.

"Commander. The building schematics indicate that Revenant occupies two upper levels and several floors below. Your target is currently on the fourth sub-basement with twelve other thermal signatures. It appears to be a meeting of some type." EDI informed them.

There was a low whistle. It echoed down the passageway.

"Four sub-basements. Damn, she's down there. It's like Hitler's bunker." Shepard said.

Grunt looked at Garrus, questioning. Garrus's visor had no explanation for him.

"Think the keeper's tunnels will go down that far?" She asked him.

"Of course. The keepers and the tech workers have access to every part of the Citadel. It's not like digging an underground facility on a planet. There's always another way in." As he spoke, Garrus's fingers were flying over a keypad. The door that slid open was barely big enough for Grunt to pass through, and it was black as pitch. Light flared out from Shepard's omni tool. This tunnel was cold, dank, and stretched on for miles.

"Glad I'm not claustrophobic." Shepard's voice seemed too large for the metal encasing them.

"I'll take point." Garrus volunteered, even as he was stepping into the narrow shaft. He paused and listened, but heard no one within. His own omni tool lit up, and his visor dialed down to a green meant to take advantage of what little light they had.

"Right." Shepard murmured. "Right behind you."

******

The trek through the tunnels took what felt like hours. Constant updates from EDI kept them on the right path, and assured them that Zael wasn't leaving any time soon. Heat signatures drifted in and out of Zael's area, but she remained. Garrus could feel Shepard getting antsy at his back. Their path meant a lot of climbing, lower, and maneuvering through places that people were rarely meant to be. At one point, they paused, and heard one of the lifts rocket past them on the other side of a wall. They were well and truly in the bowels of the Citadel.

"Should be a room adjacent to Zael's room. We could just toss a grenade in and be done with this whole thing." Grunt offered from the rear. He, of all of them, had had a particularly rough time in the tunnels. They weren't made for krogan, and he'd gotten stuck once.

"We could." Garrus agreed. "But then we'd have other assassins crawling in from time to time. Someone determined enough to hire Zael is just going to keep sending people after us."

"Shh!" Shepard laid a hand on Garrus's back, and simultaneously, on Grunt's shoulder. When Garrus turned his head, he could see her focused on her omni-tool. Once there was silence, they could all hear what had gotten her attention. It was muffled, and hard to hear, but they were close. The ductwork had been rigged and rerouted through here. When Garrus hefted himself up to inspect it, he saw that it was shoddy workmanship. The welds were crooked, and gaped in places.

"I think we've found it." He whispered to Shepard.

"I think you're right. Can you get us in?"

A quick consult of the map told him that they were right about where they needed to be. If they could get through to this room, there'd only be a door between the trio and Zael's party.

Garrus began working on the screws that held the wall panel on. It took some work. There was shittier welding here, and it took time to cut through. He dropped the screws, uncaring of having to close the panel back up. Behind him, the sound of guns being readied came loud in the silence.

On the other side of the wall, there was low red light. Crates were piled haphazardly against the wall. Garrus sniffed the air.

"Red sand." He said.

Shepard jerked her head towards the hole. Garrus entered first, swinging his gun and light to either side. His eyes swept around the room. When he saw it was clear, he signaled to Shepard. She entered, followed by Grunt. Two fingers directed Grunt to one side of the door, and Garrus to the other side.

"Shepard, we have no idea what's on the other side of this door. This is _not_ a smart move."

"It's absolutely idiotic. That's why we're going to wait. She can't be surrounded by people all night. Get comfortable, but be ready to move." With that being said, Shepard took a place behind a steel crate. She crouched, with her gun at the ready, and cued up a thermal readout of Zael's room on her omni tool. They sat in silence, waiting, watching the readout.

Fortune smiled upon them; they only waited for a couple of hours before Zael was left alone with three heat signatures that didn't move.

"Most likely bodyguards." Garrus whispered. "Maybe two and a guest."

"Good a time as any." Agreement came from the dark side of the door where Grunt crouched.

Shepard's omni-tool clicked off, and she crept closer to the door. She took a position as to allow a clear shot into Zael's room without compromising cover. Garrus saw her switch over to shredder rounds, and he checked his own.

"Open us up." Shepard said quietly.

It was locked from the outside, which meant it was locked from their side as well. Garrus had it disabled in the span of thirty seconds; he could have opened it with a wish. As the door slid open, he saw Grunt swing over the threshold, followed closely by Shepard. It was times like this that Garrus was truly alive. He followed, pointing the sniper rifle over Shepard's head. It was a symphony of gunshots and blood. Grunt sprayed the area to the left, which led to a stairway that went to the upper sub-basements. The guards barely had their guns out before they took bullets in the chest, gut, the throat. Blood sprayed out, bodies staggered back and dropped. To the right, Shepard was busy unloading her shotgun. She took three shots, and then ducked under the swing of one of Zael's guards. The guard was a krogan, and moved fast for his species. It was like a ballet. Two steps, swing, duck. She pumped the shotgun as she went, thermal clips flying, then slammed the barrel against the krogan's gut and pulled the trigger twice. A second krogan got the butt of her gun to the bridge of his nose. His forehead plate cracked, and as he stumbled backwards, Shepard raised the gun once more, another thermal clip flying red-hot over her shoulder. She fired point-blank at the krogan, earning a faceful of blood and gore.

For Garrus's part, two turians standing behind the Zael began to raise hand canons. Garrus leveled his sniper rifle, laid his mandible against the weapon, and aimed. Time seemed to slow. He could feel his breath; felt the air rasp in and out of his lungs, had time to wait until Shepard's head cleared his killing field, and then squeezed the trigger. His shot took the first turian in the throat. Red markings. That turian had been from Aularali. Had been. Past tense. Garrus twitched to the left, swinging the scope to find the smooth expanse of head plates, white facial markings. Between the eyes, that was the sweet spot. Garrus inhaled, squeezed the trigger again. The rifle in his hands responded just like Shepard's body underneath his talons. For the first time, he realized that he was good at more than one thing. The sweet song of the rifle firing; the sweet song of her voice.

Blue turian blood spattered the wall. Bits of brain flesh, splashed on Zael's face, still registering shock. Before the asari was fully to her feet, her guards were dead. She looked to the left, the right, seeing her two turians dead.

All this in a matter of seconds, and then there were three guns leveled at Zael, who stood panting and getting paler by the second. Biotics flared briefly over the asari's body, until Shepard pumped her shotgun once more.

"Don't!" Shepard snarled, like a dog of war, like a valkyrie. Garrus's blood was singing, Grunt was roaring.

Zael threw her hands up, backing against the blood-covered wall.

The asari looked different than when Garrus had seen her last. She was doing well for herself. Well…had been, at any rate. The bright blue blood was a contrast against her skin, and she looked terrified.

They'd taken Zael's party by surprise. There was nothing but the pound of music from above. No alarms went off. No other guards came rushing down. They had her.

Garrus kept his rifle aimed at Zael's head as he watched his valkyrie step to her, and yank the asari by the collar. Zael stumbled, and fell to the ground, with Shepard following her. There was a yelp, and a crack as a knee went into Zael's back. There, Shepard held her down, rammed the muzzle of her shotgun against the back of Zael's head.

There was finally stillness and silence. Garrus popped the heat sink out of his rifle and chambered a fresh round. The sound echoed throughout the room as if to punctuate the unspoken threat of Shepard's shotgun against delicate asari skull.

"You move, you speak, and I am going to paint your floor an interesting shade of asari brain-matter grey." Came the deadly dangerous sound of Shepard's voice. She jerked her head towards Garrus, who looked to Grunt. No command needed to be traded around; the krogan moved off to the stairway to seal the door and keep watch.

Shepard leaned close, armour rustling and gun clacking against her breastplate. She hissed into Zael's ear.

"In case you didn't notice, your assassin fucking failed. Which is really unfortunate for you."

Then Shepard's hand came up and she slammed the gun butt down once, twice into the back of Zael's head. The asari stiffened at the first blow, and then went limp. Her eyes closed, mouth gaped open. Shepard looked up at Garrus.

"Cuffs." She said.

Earlier on the Normandy, Shepard had tucked a pair of restraining cuffs into one of Garrus's ammo pockets. He never kept that many bullets on him. He didn't question her; didn't really need to. Cuffs meant they were taking a prisoner. Shepard didn't have an official assignment as a Spectre from the new human-led council yet, and she was above the law. This suited Garrus just fine; if someone didn't take out the trash, no one else ever would. Besides, it wasn't like Shepard went out look for a fight. They were eliminating a threat. There were worse things they could be doing, other than bringing down one of the few truly evil people in the galaxy.

Garrus dropped to a knee, and yanked the cuffs out of his spare ammo pocket. The sound of the metal closing around the asari's wrists was satisfying. Even if they never got any information out of Zael, even if they just ended up spacing her, they were doing the galaxy a favour.

It was good timing, with Garrus hefting Zael over his shoulder, because Grunt came down the steps at a trot.

"Company's coming. Let's go."

"Hear ya." Shepard said, chambering some fresh shells. She didn't need to tell them to move out. The trio moved back into their hidey hole, and made for the hole in the wall. Garrus saw Shepard halt at the door panel as the metal slid shut behind them.

"What're you doing?"

"Covering our exit." She said, as she tossed the shotgun back on its strap. "Go, Garrus. I'm right behind you."

Garrus paused, but didn't stop, didn't argue. He wasn't Alenko, arguing with the Commander about going to fetch Joker. Their war machine worked so well because of it. He hunkered down, and moved into the hole. Zael was heavy as dead weight, but he managed. Grunt brought up the rear.

Behind them, Garrus heard the unmistakable sound of a control panel being irreparably damaged. The circuits were all fried. Zael's reinforcements would have to cut through if there wasn't a tracker somewhere on her. Quite suddenly, Garrus felt he should be guarding Shepard's flank. Something bad was about to happen; his scarred mandible was grating in its socket and a bad feeling had settled into his gut.

"Take her." He said to Grunt.

"Right. Like I'm going to be able to carry her through these damned little tunnels."

"Here." Garrus shrugged the weight of the unconscious asari off of his shoulder, into Grunt's arms.

Again, good timing. There were shouts, fists beating against a metal door, yelled commands. Garrus poked his head back into the red sand room, and gave Shepard a hand back into the wall. At the door, the seam where the two sections of metal met flared, went red-hot, and then white-yellow sparks shot through.

"Gotta go." Garrus's voice was urgent. "They're cutting through."  
"Coming, darling." The mirth was forced; Shepard's voice held the same sense of urgency. Like trolls, they scuttled back the way they came. The prospect of being lost in the keeper's tunnels with a hostage and hounds baying at their backs wasn't appetizing. There was a sudden element of real danger that Garrus didn't like. Close quarters like this, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel with a bazooka.

"Commander, I recommend haste. I'm detecting a radiological signature."

"Idiots are going to detonate a nuke inside the Citadel?" Grunt's voice was muffled by the burden of the asari.

"I've got a nuke gun. It'd be narcissistic to think someone else doesn't." Shepard sounded out of breath.

"EDI, how many do we have behind us?" Garrus was breathing hard as well.

"Fourteen." EDI's voice was cheerful. "Odds of survival if you engage in combat are not good, Officer Vakarian."

"Only four a piece." Grunt sounded amused. How could he sound like that at this of all times? Garrus made a mental note to say something later.

"Fuck me." Shepard swung her omni-tool to the right, lighting the passage that would lead out into the alleys of Little Earth.

Outside the tunnels, the alleys were deserted. The music from Revenant could be heart to the right, and Garrus jerked his head to the left.

"Service elevator." He said. They followed.

"Commander, they're closing distance." EDI said.

"Hurry." Shepard cast a look back. For a second, she looked regretful. "We can't take these odds."

It'd been two years since he'd cut and run from the Citadel, but Garrus was hoping that his authorization code still worked. The elevator opened for them, and they piled in. Blue glass closed around them. Garrus's talons flew over the keypad. 9-A-P-C-S-E-C276.

Red light flashed at him.

"Godammit!" His fist balled, and he slammed it into the keypad. Had just enough time to hack, maybe….Garrus keyed up his omni-tool.

"There they are." Grunt was already dropping Zael to the floor, yanking his assault rifle up and aiming.

Sudden pain exploded in his left shoulder. Had he been shot? His talons went numb, but he still forced them over the keys on his omni-tool. At least he was able to slide into cover, tucking himself in the corner by the control panel. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shepard ducking into the opposite corner.

The sound of gunfire in the elevator was deafening. Bullets flew past and pockmarked the reinforced blue glass behind them. Grunt was roaring, emptying his clip. There wasn't much in the way of cover for the krogan, so he merely took a knee to make himself as small a target as possible. He scooted closer to Shepard, hunching so she could fire over his head.

"Grenade going!" She shouted. The launched clicked as she yanked the release back and fired. There was quite a satisfying blast out in the alley.

"Urk….!" A bullet took Grunt in the side, spinning him around. There was blue blood on the floor of the elevator. The krogan slipped, falling on his ass, taking another bullet to the side of the neck.

"Godammit." Garrus swore again. He couldn't feel his talons. They were giving him trouble. He keyed the last digit, and felt a slow roil of relief as the reinforced glass doors slammed down.

Damn…he was feeling faint. Why was there so much blue all over the elevator? The krogan was lurching to his feet; Garrus looked down at his shoulder.

"Haven't seen this much of my own blood since Omega." He joked. His laughter was weak.

"Jesus, Garrus, Grunt…" Shepard had slung her shotgun back over her shoulder.

"I'm fine, Shepard." Already, the krogan was on his feet. He was bleeding, but not as badly as it seemed at first.

"Garrus…" She limped to him. Garrus laughed.

"I've had worse." Wait…why was she limping? A bullet hole in her armour. A wound in her thigh.

"Shut up before you bleed out." There was a cold, burning sensation in his shoulder. The astringent smell of alcohol reached his nose.

"Save that for yourself. I can run with a bullet in my arm."

"I'll run." She said.

_Beep…beep…beep…_

The action faded into anticlimax as the elevator rose. A slow rumble started in Garrus's chest, and exploded out in jagged laugh.

"Holy fuck." Shepard ran a hand over her hair, ignoring the blue smear there, and collapsed on the floor beside Garrus. Grunt settled back near Zael, breaking open his own medi-gel. A sigh escaped Shepard.

"You know, Shepard, when I imagined you with my colours on, I had something else in mind." Garrus bent a knee, and braced his arm on it. In this moment, with death behind them, he didn't feel the need to be discreet.

"We're all wearing your colours now, turian." Grunt growled from across the elevator.

Shepard drew her knees up, floors passing behind her as the elevator continued to shoot up. Her gloves squeaked as she rubbed her thumb and forefingers together. The blue blood was inky against the grey of her gloves.

"EDI, it would be really great if someone was waiting to help us onboard the ship."

"Yes, Commander."

*****

Getting clearance to leave the station had been easier than Garrus anticipated. Shepard's Spectre status opened a lot more doors than his own security clearance. A message was left with Councilor Anderson that they were leaving the station to test modifications to the FTL drives. Once they had Zael secured the cell that Ilardi had vacated when they'd docked at the Citadel, Shepard's team was man-handled into the medbay. Mordin and Dr. Chakwas had given them an earful. Miranda was less than pleased at having been left behind. Garrus did not respond when she accused him of usurping the position of second-in-command.

******

Garrus's eyes opened. Above him, Shepard's newly-repaired view window showed they were still within the nebula that surrounded the Citadel. All in all, he didn't feel too terrible. His left hand curled, flexing. His talons still felt a bit stiff, and it hurt to bend his wrist. That'd go away, he imagined, as the bullet wound healed. The sheets rustled beneath him as he rolled to his side. Shepard came into his field of vision, reclining on her new couch.

"Hey.." He said, sitting up.

"Hey, your own self." She said, hands laced behind her neck. She was clad in black shorts and a white tank top that left little to Garrus's imagination. He winced when he saw thick white bandages laced around her thigh.

"I still don't know how you ran on that."

Shepard followed his gaze, and laid her hands on the couch beside her. He saw her brace her weight on her arms and sit up straighter.

"Yeah, well, I didn't do that much running, really." She started to reach for a cane standing against her desk. In an instant, Garrus was on his feet and leaning to help her. He had his own swathe of bandages swaddled around his shoulder and across his chest.

"You did enough." He shrugged her arm over his unwounded shoulder and helped her stand. She used the cane like it was going to bite her at any second; he could understand. It wouldn't do to show any weakness when they went in to talk to Zael. Ezmay gestured to the bed; Garrus wondered how long she'd been sitting up watching him sleep.

"I almost got us killed."

"It was fun." He countered.

"You don't have to kiss my ass, Garrus." She sat, one hand first to stead herself, and then scooted back on the bed. As she fell back on the pillows, she groaned. "I think I pulled every muscle in my body."

"It was a good fight. We probably could have done with a little more planning, but honestly, it was as good a plan as any. Once we saw her firepower, I mean."

"What were you saying about your colours on me?" The change of subject was so abrupt that Garrus had to check himself and looked to her. Ezmay stared up and out the viewing window, purposefully not looking at him. Another thing she'd beat herself up about, working on her instincts and not being the damn tactician.

"Uh…" Garrus looked away. He felt awkward again. "That's down the road a bit. We're not there yet."

"Spill." She said.

"Turians wear markings on their faces to show where they're from, who they belong to."

"So, I'd have blue tattoos?"

"Like I said…down the road."

Shepard twisted her good leg up and nudged him with her foot. He looked back at her, catching her foot in his hand and rubbing his thumb over her little heel.

"Turians mate for life, Shepard."

Those words made her turn red and brought the gravity of the conversation settling deep into the pit of her belly. It both embarrassed and intimidated her. In all the time on the first Normandy, the conversation of permanence had never come up between her and Alenko; the relationship had never developed that far. 'For life' was for real. At once, she understood why Garrus was so reticent on the topic. She'd better be damn sure that she was free and clear if she was going to put on war paint for Garrus.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." She said softly.

Garrus's thumb stroked up the arch of her foot. It gave her gooseflesh. Why did she get the sense that Garrus understood her line of thought and agreed?

"Yes, we will." His voice was rough. Sooner or later she was going to notice the anticipation of each other's actions. The anticipation of thought that reached beyond mere body language.

"But you're already heading down that road, aren't you?" Her voice was even softer if that could be possible. Did she even wonder why the well-oiled machine that was their teamwork seemed more efficient as of late?

Garrus sighed.

"Ezmay, let's just drop this for the time being. There's going to be a lot about this whole thing….about us…that'll be strange to you."

"Fine." Her arms went up, out, indicating he should lie down with her. The warmth of her skin felt good against his plates.


	9. Chapter 9

_There was something about hot water tumbling over your skin that made the hair stand on end, made the muscles begin to relax, made the world outside melt into nothingness. _

_He didn't come. He said he wanted to try it with her, said he would figure out how to make things work, and then he didn't come._

'_Jesus.' Ezmay thought. 'Here we are, about to plunge through mass relay that was buddy-buddy with anti-matter and black holes, about to go kick over the Collector's beehive, and I'm getting all pissy about a crush.'_

_It still hurt. Honestly, before kicking Saren's ass, there was a time she could have gone either way between Kaiden and Garrus. If Garrus had shown any interest, that is. _

_Shepard's fingers lay against the glass and she rested her forehead against her knuckles. The water stung as it pelted against her neck._

_She'd gone with Garrus to kill Dr. Saleon. Spent hours talking with him in their off-time, Had finally worked up the balls to flirt outright. At the time, she'd thought maybe she wasn't being clear. Imagine her elation when it seemed to work._

_Now they were going to their deaths, and he'd bailed on her._

'_I am not going to cry like some fucking __**girl**__.' Her lips tightened, brow furrowed._

_No. No, she didn't cry. Instead, she got out of the shower, got dressed, and intended to go dial up a vid while she rested._

_And there he was. He was definitely out of uniform. Shepard's heart leapt in her chest. Her first instinct was to bestow a good ass-chewing on him for waiting so long. But she was too happy to see him. And nervous unexpectedly._

"_Hey. I brought wine. Best I could afford on a vigilante's salary."_

_*****_

If there was one thing that Garrus didn't think he'd ever get tired of, it was watching Ezmay in various states of undress. It wasn't a sexual thing, really. Ok. Sort of, but not wholly. It was the differences between them that he had never marveled at before that demanded his attention now. Garrus himself stood nearly seven feet tall, and was heavy by turian standards. He could move swiftly, yet could pack quite a punch in melee combat. He had reach, as he'd already established. His plated skin was a sort of metallic colour that shifted between gold or silver depending on who you asked. His eyes burned cobalt blue, and under the armour, he was all roughness, plates, and rigidity. Ezmay, by contrast, was small and swarthy. Her skin spoke family raised near the equator, of sunny days by a beach. Her eyes were a shade of green that were unique to her species; he'd never seen turian eyes reach that deep a green. Her hair was like silk, was shiny ebony. She was tiny to Garrus's eye, even though in reality, she didn't have to look too far up to him. And her body. It was taut and lean. She was sinewy muscle with modest curves and skin that felt like it would tear if handled too roughly. When pissed, Shepard could strike with the speed of a snake, and she overcame the natural physical weakness of her gender by being clever as hell. Garrus liked to watch her dress and undress because he liked to contemplate the strange sort of creature he'd thrown in his lot with. How had it come to pass that a Vakarian, considered one of more honourable families in the Hierarchy, had chosen to mate with a barefaced human?

"Miranda says that Zael's fed and resting comfortably in the brig. Also says they searched her several times and found no tracking devices of any sort."

Shepard hobbled over to Garrus, and leaned against him while she pulled on one of her boots. The nonchalance of the action made him feel inexplicably satisfied.

"If she's resting, then it's just about the right time to barge in for a chat." She mumbled as she bent to pull on the other boot. Her leg trembled; it was the injured leg she was trying to bend up for her shoe. It had to have hurt.

'_How on earth does she heal from a brain injury in three days, and then goes to having trouble with a bullet wound?' _He thought. There were a lot of things about Project Lazarus that he didn't understand; Garrus liked to think he was pretty smart, but when Miranda got going with her neurological talk, he couldn't follow that well. Something about pouring more resources into making sure Shepard stayed who she was, with healing from secondary wounds being…well…secondary.

Shepard straightened her leg, shook out her foot, and then tried again. It pained Garrus to watch her body shaking with the effort to bring her leg up high enough to accept the boot.

"You want some help?" He offered.

"I…can…do…it." Her teeth were clenched.

"Oh. And here I thought that you wouldn't mind."

"I'm good." Shepard managed to hook her toes in the boot opening, but couldn't quite maneuver the shoe over her heel.

"For god's sake." Garrus knelt, feeling Shepard's hands hurriedly resettle on his collar in an effort to steady herself. He gently unbent her injured leg, and slipped the boot on her foot. He spoke as he closed the pressure clasps for her.

"You're stubborn."

Shepard's fingers tightened on him, but she didn't respond until he was straightened back up and staring down at her.

"This from the man who tried to take down three merc organizations on his own."

"I learned from the best. What is it you like to say sometimes? Anything worth doing is worth doing right?" Garrus squinted one eye, exaggerating the pantomime of having to struggle to remember.

"Right, wiseass. I'm itching to talk to Zael. Let's go to the brig."

"I'm right behind you."

They trooped out, taking the elevator to level 5. Down here, they were in the belly of the Normandy. None of the boarding crew for the Collector base had chosen to live down here, and honestly, Shepard or Garrus had never had much need to venture to this part of the ship. As Shepard passed, with Garrus at her heel, crew members saluted, nodded, greeted. In the brig itself, two guards sat watching the asari sleep. Garrus felt momentarily sorry for them; it had to be boring as hell, staring at a prisoner for eight straight hours.

Zael lay on her bunk, staring at the ceiling. The sound of boots coming made her bolt upright and perch on the edge of the mattress. Garrus's eyes went to her arms, which folded and wrapped under her breasts. Her hands were relaxed. Cautious, but not scared. She'd probably seen worse.

"Commander!" The guards chimed.

"At ease. How is our prisoner?" Shepard planted her feet wide, and folded her arms.

"Hasn't been any trouble."

"Has she been feeling chatty?"

"No ma'am. Can't say as she has."

"Well, then." Shepard approached the cell slowly.

During the time Garrus spent in the military academy when he was young, he had a general understanding of how human ships had been built. Bars in the brig, which made it easy for an unassuming guard to find him or herself being strangled by a prisoner who'd slipped their arms outside. The Normandy followed modified turian design; a glowing pink kinetic barrier separated Shepard from Zael. Garrus was glad for it. As Shepard approached, Zael got to her feet. She moved to the field with all the predatory motions of a leopard getting ready to leap from the trees. She eyed Shepard in a way that Garrus did not like. His talons twitched in the direction of his sidearm.

Zael looked different from most asari. Where the purple-skinned asari tended to fall into the lavender range, Zael's skin was a rich magenta that paled only when it went down her throat. Her markings were almost nonexistent- only a few pale pink spots surrounding her eyes. The difference between her two colours was offsetting. The contrast seemed wrong. It had been proposed that asari's deeds determined their colouring and their markings, but had been dismissed as urban legend.

Zael looked Shepard up and down, her eyes lingering on Shepard's right leg as if she could see the white linen bandages through her trousers. Then she paced the length of the cell, back and forth, as if she were waiting for the barrier to release in order to pounce.

They just stood there, staring and pacing, or staring and standing. Out of the corner of his eye, Garrus saw the two guards exchange glances. They didn't understand this little show like Garrus did. Dominance and hierarchy was a part of turian life; facial markings often delineated which family and which colony the turian came from, thus establishing rank. Humans didn't have such a clear system; they relied on body language to establish who the more dominant one was. It was one of the many things Garrus had noticed. Since he'd become the de facto executive officer, sometimes Miranda would puff up her chest when she encountered Garrus, for example. She didn't have the confidence to push the issue further than that. Now, he watched Shepard and Zael sizing one another up like two alpha wolves trying to decide who was going to lead the pack, and who would either become beta or leave entirely. Of course, Zael would break first. Shepard had home field advantage and was infinitely stubborn. Not to mention, batshit crazy at times.

Shepard stood rigid, staring.

_Pace….pace….pace…_

At last, Zael turned away, slinking back towards the bunk. Her pacing became aimless, wandering around the cell. She spoke first.

"What do you want, Shepard?"

"Your client."

Zael's laugh was short, genuinely amused.

"Like hell. Giving up clients is bad for business."

Garrus had a flashback to Harkin. Was there some book full of supposedly badass things for villains to say when they were in this kind of situation?

"You're assuming that you're going to go back to business. I've arranged an auction between Liara T'Soni and the Shadow Broker for your head." Shepard feigned disinterest; slender fingers leaned up to flick away a bit of imaginary lint from her jacket.

Zael turned and halted, staring at Shepard with anger now. There was more silence. Garrus broke it.

"Ilardi told us that you arranged for him to be smuggled on at Omega. He did a piss-poor job of setting up the bombs, though. Cut himself while he was rigging it and depressurized his environmental suit. Bled all over our cargo bay. I finally found him hiding in the ventilation system. He's a bit amateur for your organization, isn't he, Zael?" His voice sounded business-like. It was like old hat, slipping into the C-Sec role once more.

"Fuck you, turian." Zael's pacing belayed her flippant tone.

"By the way, you owe us for the food he stole."

Zael laughed at him.

"Ilardi told us he was working with turians. Do you know anything about that?" Garrus's voice was calm and patient. In reality, Sean Ilardi had told them no such thing. He was extrapolating from what Jack had said, but he wanted to see how Zael reacted.

"So, you're good cop, and Shepard's bad cop?"

"Actually, we're both bad cop, but he's just got more patience than I do." Shepard spoke up.

"Well, you're a perfect match, then." Zael's voice came up, nearly interrupting the Commander.

So, Zael knew the status of their relationship. _Interesting._ Once more, Garrus wondered if someone on the Normandy was feeding information off-ship.

"Did you tell Ilardi to try again, when he contacted you?"

Silence from the cell.

"Did it piss you off that the substandard help you hired had failed?"

Zael's eyes glowered at Garrus. She looked back and forth between him and Shepard. The insinuation that her organization and contacts were less than competent was the wedge. This seemed to irritate her more than anything and Garrus had found the key to getting information out of her.

"Makes you look bad, doesn't it? What did your client say when you told him you'd need more time to do your job?" Garrus asked.

"You gave him a time frame one when I'd be dead, right? How did it make you feel to fail?" Shepard had picked up on the angle that Garrus was working on. It seemed to be helpful; Zael's lip was twitching as if she wanted to growl.

"What's your usual protocol when you fuck something up?" Shepard prodded.

"I didn't fuck anything up!" The yell echoed in the enclosed space of the brig.

The asari was beginning to break. All it was going to take now was a little bit of pressure.

"Of course you didn't." Garrus made his voice sound patronizing, as if talking to a small child.

"You." A slim purple finger poking in the direction of Shepard's head. "You fucked this all up."

"How? By not having the good manners to kindly die when the bombs went off?"

"Would've been nice."

"Cost you a lot of money, didn't I?" Now that Zael was talking, Shepard came a little closer to the barrier. Garrus restrained himself from stopping her, only swallowed hard instead. He knew the field would protect her, but it was hard to watch her close the distance between herself and theoretical danger and not jump to protect her himself. Even though he knew damn good and well that she could protect herself.

"Not too much. Just the promise of future projects..." Zael's eyes were moving over Shepard. One could tell that she wanted to come through the kinetic barrier and throttle the Commander.

"Who was it?" Garrus asked. The sudden sound of his voice worked like a gunshot; Zael tore her eyes away from Shepard and narrowed them on him. Too soon. He'd asked too soon. Zael retreated, plopping down on her chair.

"Fuck you, turian." Her voice was almost acid.

"How much did they pay you for me?" Shepard mirrored Zael, flipping a chair around so she could straddle it with her arms leaning on the back.

"Enough."

"How much is enough?"

"It's enough."

"How much is that?" Shepard pressed.

"It was e-fucking-nough." Zael had a worse mouth than Jack. Garrus felt a sudden wave of irritation ghost through him, unexplained. He looked towards Shepard, and found her lips twisting into a thinner line that spoke of her rising fury.

"Did you know that we spaced Ilardi?" She said, very softly.

"My sources say you turned him into C-Sec." Zael crossed her arms over her chest. Garrus knew from his C-Sec days that the sudden barrier of Zael's arms put between her and Shepard meant that they'd touched on a topic that was upsetting her. Garrus's bet was that she was lying, that she had no contacts. They had indeed turned Ilardi in, but if she really knew that, she would've acted a lot more relaxed.

"Oh, they're wrong. We dragged him into the airlock, stripped him down, and sent him out into the vacuum as naked as the day he was born."

"You lie." Zael's eyes glittered dark blue. Garrus watched her arms close tighter around her torso.

"The Shadow Broker said he'd give me 50,000 credits for your head. It'd be enough to cover the debt we incurred fixing your screw-up with the bombs."

Again, real fear in Zael's eyes. Intriguing. She wasn't afraid of death, but she was afraid of the Shadow Broker.

"Zael…" Garrus interjected. "Was it your idea to mix fireworks with the high explosives?"

"Fireworks?" Her shoulder jerked, and she looked to Garrus with a confused stare.

"Your agent mixed fireworks with the high explosives because he thought it would be the same type of explosion. Needed a bigger bang." Again, Garrus was extrapolating, but Zael didn't have to know it. It was radical, watching the wince of pain as she envisioned having sent such a total idiot to do a job that should have taken a small army. This hurt Zael's pride, and the more he hammered at it, the weaker she got.

"I told him…." Zael took a breath. "I told him to put the bombs near the hull. Near an airlock door or something."

"To depressurize the ship, yes?" Shepard said. "He changed his mind and went with his own plan. You got a real free-thinker there."

There was a perceptible sag in Zael's shoulders.

"I told him not to deviate from the plan." Zael's fingers came up and rubbed at her brow bone. Now she genuinely looked tired.

"I'll cut you a deal, Zael." Now Shepard was standing. Garrus had not noticed her do so.

"I don't deal with targets." The tired look was replaced with a hard smile. For just a second, Shepard felt sorry for her. The asari's business was over, and she _knew_ it. No deal she could cut now would give her the security of the life she was yanked out of. Ah, well….live by the sword, die by the sword and all that….

So where did they go from here? 'Advanced interrogation techniques?' Garrus could tell from looking at Shepard that she didn't want to have to go down that route again.

"You give me what I want, and I'll drop you off somewhere in the Terminus systems. No one will be able to find you if you don't want to be found." Shepard was being mighty generous.

Zael was silent. She looked away, truly looked as if considering it. The slim lips pursed, and a hand came up to stroke at her neck. It was as good an offer as she was likely to get. Garrus knew full well that Shepard had not contacted the Shadow Broker or Liara, but it didn't preclude her doing it in the future. Watching the asari consider the offer, it was hard to keep in mind that this was the person who coordinated the sale of slaves, the taking of captives, the sale of stolen ships and good, the dealer of drugs, the murderer, the thief, etc., etc. Now she did not seem dangerous and vindictive, but delicate and afraid. They had taken her so easily. It was a surprise attack, powered by sheer emotion…

Something wasn't right.

"That's a very charitable offer, Shepard. May I discuss it with Officer Vakarian here, in private?" She said, her voice turning silky.

Surprise. Something was still grating on his nerves, screaming that something was off. Shepard looked as if she was having the same thought, but she nodded.

"Make it quick." As the Commander turned on her heel to leave, Garrus stood straight from where he'd been leaning against the wall. Cautious, he approached the kinetic barrier that sealed Zael's cell. The sound of the door shutting came from behind him. Then Zael's innocent smile turned smug. Garrus halted when he saw the edges of her lips turn upward cruelly.

"What's the human saying, Officer Vakarian? Your chickens are coming home to roost."

"What the hell…?"

"It's about time…" Zael's eyes went to the clock posted on the wall, and she jerked her chin towards it.

Another bomb?! Another attack of some sort?! Garrus didn't have too much time to ponder it. Suddenly, the ship was rocked by another explosion. This one….seemed much bigger than the last. All four of them in the brig had to stumble, and then right themselves. Garrus was already moving to the door when EDI beamed up in the brig as the guards snapped to with guns trained on Zael.

"Officer Vakarian, Commander Shepard requests that you 'hurry your ass to the CIC'."

"Tell her I'm coming. And you…" Garrus turned and fixed Zael with a death glare. "I'll deal with you later."

"Yes, you will." She promised. Something about the expression on her face told him he shouldn't leave, should stay and keep an eye on her. As he left, he didn't notice the way her eyes slid to the guards.

There was chaos in the passageways of the ship. Engineers and crew were dashing this way and that. Whatever had happened to the Normandy had caused damage; fires had broken out. People were spraying them with extinguishers as he bolted past. The elevator seemed to take forever. When the doors slid open to admit him to the CIC, there was more bedlam here. People were working furiously on their respective stations, some putting out fires, some shouting orders to and fro. The new yeoman, whom Garrus had not yet gotten acquainted with, spotted him and waved him up to Joker's cockpit.

"She's up there."

Even if he'd not had that direction, Garrus could hear her bellowing orders. So it was a tactical battle. Yes, this was right, then. The executive officer should be by the Commander's side. Shepard straightened up when she spotted him.

"What happened?" He asked. Another explosion rocked the ship, and sent him stumbling into the console where EDI's sphere was illuminated.

"Three ships appeared out of nowhere! Started firing. They haven't communicated yet." Joker said. "They've probably got the same kind of stealth tech we do."

"Zael's people, I'd bet my ass on it." Shepard tore her eyes away from Joker's console long enough to fix Garrus with a look. "She must have gotten something on board that broadcast our location. Something we missed."

"Miranda said they strip-searched her. Must be something internal." It made sense. Garrus nodded.

"Then this whole thing was a trap. But we've got a little leeway; she wouldn't be a party to a plan that would put her in danger of death. I'd bet my ass on that too. Which means these ships aren't here to kill us. Yet. There's something on board that she wants." Shepard said.

Garrus's memory yanked him back to what Zael'd said just before the explosion.

'_Your chickens are coming home to roost.'_

"Me. She's taking me." Garrus was dumbfounded. It made no sense.

The sense of shock in the cockpit was tangible. Shepard was staring at him.

"Are you sure? Was that what she wanted to say to you?"

"Pretty much. We should send people down to the brig."

"You're right. Grunt! Round up some people and go guard our prisoner." Shepard said into her intercom.

"I'm on it." Came the grizzled voice of the krogan.

"Joker, keep us whole." Shepard's green eyes turned to Garrus. "Garrus, take Jacob and Jack and get down to the battery. I need you firing. No one handles the thanix cannon like you."

"Going." Already Garrus was moving away, and he heard Shepard on the intercom behind him. She called first Jacob, and then Jack.

Shepard watched Garrus head back across the CIC, and then she turned her attention back to Joker's console. The pilot was already coordinating with EDI about defensive maneuvers.

"Commander, it's going to get rough in here."

"Just keep us in one piece; I don't care if everyone on this ship vomits in tandem."

"Got it."

"All hands! Get ready for some chop!" Shepard cued the ship-wide address.

Below in engineering, Tali was working with the engineers to push more speed out of the Normandy. The ship's drives flared up, and Joker pressed down the throttle. The Normandy picked up speed, jerked up over the three ships flanking.

Shepard braced herself behind Joker's seat. He cleared the three ships, pouring on the speed, and then jerked the Normandy hard to starboard, turning the ship upside down and dropping them down. If they'd been flying in the atmosphere of a planet, the Normandy would have been plummeting towards the ground. Suddenly, the Normandy righted itself, and Shepard could see that Joker had brought them behind one of the ships that had not started giving chase.

"Vakarian, fix your firing solution. Fire at will." Shepard said into her intercom.

The ship that the Normandy was targeting seemed to finally get a clue. It geared up and took off. Suddenly the beam of a canon flared past the window. Shepard lurched to the right, slamming the shutter down to protect the cockpit. EDI brought a larger display up, showing the field of battle for both Joker and Shepard to see.

The ship that Joker was chasing swung right, one side dipping down as it struggled to turn and put itself behind the Normandy. Joker mimicked his moves, and Shepard watched as Garrus let loose with the canon.

"Got one behind us, Joker." The display showed another canon shot fired at them. Joker jerked the controls and the Normandy swung out of the line of fire.

"Yeah, yeah."

Shepard watched the throttle key down a bit; Joker was bleeding off speed, forcing the other ship into a scissors maneuver. The other ship matched speed, and then sped up suddenly, as if to break away from the Normandy. That was what Joker was waiting for. He slammed down the throttle then, slowing the Normandy up dramatically, and once more, the thanix cannon let loose. This time, they were rewarded with a hit. The canon laced through the hull of the other ship, cutting it neatly in half. There was a brief flare of an explosion as Joker sped up the Normandy once more. They sailed through the debris.

"Shepard, we got a problem." Grunt's voice came over the intercom.

"Jesus Christ, don't tell me she's out." Shepard growled. When it rains, it pours.

"'Fraid so. Killed the guards. Looks like biotics."

"EDI, you and Joker got this?"

"I got this!" Joker answered instead.

Shepard jerked her head at Miranda.

"You're with me. We need to go find out guest."

"I'm right with you, Commander."

Down to the bowels of the ship they went. The condition alarms were still flaring down here, and they ran into Grunt's party just outside of the brig.

"Any idea where she is?" Shepard asked Grunt. He'd commandeered five soldiers, and none of them looked too thrilled to be there.

Grunt had no time to answer, however. The Normandy took a hit. The ship rocked, and the entire group found themselves stumbling to the left. Shepard damn near fell on her ass.

"EDI, damage report?"

"A canon hit to the starboard side. Hull is intact. Minimal damage. There are fires on deck 3, but personnel are currently taking care of them."

"Looks like she took down the kinetic barrier with biotics, crushed the guards to death."

Shepard cursed. Nowhere in any of the information that she'd gotten on Zael Hollinth listed the asari as a biotic. It shouldn't have come as such a surprise though.

"Right then, you're with us." She pointed towards one of the soldiers, a red-haired young woman with a name tag reading 'Holloway.' "Fan out, we search this entire level. Let's see if we can flush her out. Radio contact at all times."

There were scattered 'aye's' and a nod from Grunt. The two parties split, each making its way in opposite directions. Fortunately, level 5 wasn't huge. There were only so many places Zael could hide.

"Are we shooting to kill, Commander?" Miranda said beside her.

"I'm considering it."

Shepard was chewing her lip as her party made its way down the passage of level 5. This entire operation had gone to hell in a hand basket; she didn't know if she'd played it sloppy or if it was just Fate pissing on her. All she knew was her wounded leg was burning horribly in protest of all the activity.

Then the lights went out on level 5.

Their party halted immediately. Miranda was the first to speak, her voice coming out quiet as three omni-tools flared with light.

"I'm not a betting woman, but I'd wager this is from Zael, rather than the fight outside."

"Commander, lighting and environmental for this level has been tampered with at the base output."

"That's near the front of the ship on this level." Holloway said helpfully.

"You know it's a trap." Miranda said. Shepard could see her fingers nervously checking and rechecking that she had a fresh thermal clip in her pistol.

"Shepard, the lights're out." Grunt said over her earpiece.

"Grunt, move out towards the base output for lighting and environmental. It's near the escape pods."

"Moving out."

"Shepard!" Miranda said again.

"I know!" Shepard said, looking upwards as the red emergency lights came up. "EDI, can you bring environmental back online?"

"Negative, Commander. The environmental system has been disabled remotely. My sensors also show that the elevator had now been disabled as well."

"Godammit to hell and back." Shepard swore again. "We go then. Keep sharp. EDI, can you give us a thermal pinpoint of where Zael is?"

"Currently, I have a heat signature near the base output. She's not going anywhere."

"Just waiting for us. To hell with this." Shepard keyed up the intercom to Grunt. "Grunt, EDI says she's waiting for us at base output. Shoot to kill. She's already proven herself too dangerous."

"Got it."

Shepard's party began to make their way down the passage. The air was beginning to bleed off, but it wasn't bad yet. This was a standard design in turian ships, meant to keep the entire ship from being decompressed if one level lost atmosphere. They crept towards the base output, pausing only when the Normandy rocked from more hits. A readout from EDI on her omni-tool kept her updated on the damage report; Joker must have been working some miracles up in the cockpit. Hull integrity was still strong. The thermal display still showed Zael waiting.

They closed the distance. Around the corner, she should be there. Shepard paused, gesturing for Miranda to use biotics to disable Zael, and Holloway to open fire when she had a good shot. From the display, Shepard saw Grunt's party massing, and going into a similar formation.

They turned the corner.

In the red emergency lights, Zael stood there. She swung her head around to face them when the lights from their omni-tools fell on her. The next few moments seemed to happen as if in a blur.

On the other side of the passage, Grunt's party rounded the corner as well. Gunshots began to ring out as one by one, they sighted and fired. Zael seemed to move like lightning. She'd taken one of the guns off of the guards from the brig. If Shepard hadn't been seeing it, she wouldn't have believed that Zael was actually _dodging_ the damn bullets. She whipped her biotics out, warping, and then throwing the four guards that Grunt had with him. Then she spun, and put three rounds in Holloway's torso. Shepard and Miranda dodged to either side as Holloway fell. There was no cover to be had in the passageway. Grunt charged.

Zael swung around to meet him, seizing him with biotics and stopping him just before he reached her. Miranda and Shepard took this opportunity to unload their guns on Zael. A biotic field flared around her with each bullet.

Miranda's body flared with biotic power, and snapped Zael's head back, releasing the hold she had on Grunt. He saw his opening and began to fire once more. Again, the field around Zael seemed to absorb the bullets. Shepard charged as Miranda's field was released, trying to strike when Zael was distracted by Grunt's firing.

Suddenly, Shepard and Zael were locked in struggle. Zael drew back her fist, and once more, the purple biotic field flared. She threw the punch at Shepard, knocking her back. Shepard skidded, sliding backwards on her ass, losing her shotgun in the process. There was a fiery burst of pain in her leg as she hit the wall. What had she run into? She couldn't see. The pain was blinding her. As quickly as she could, she struggled to her feet. It was so godamn _hard. _A sense of heat in her leg told her that her stitches were torn out. She had to have been bleeding. She tried to stand, but fell. The leg wasn't working with her; it went weak when she tried to force her weight on it.

Zael let loose a whirlwind of biotic punches, one of them further disabling the base output and killing the emergency lighting. Level 5 plunged once more into darkness. What happened next, Shepard couldn't see. The light from her omni-tool was like a strobe. She saw more gunshots, heard Grunt let loose a moan of pain, and then there was silence from him.

Purple light illuminated the area briefly enough for Shepard to see Miranda and Zael gripping each other at the shoulders. Miranda was snarling, trying to overcome Zael's biotic field with her own. Zael, for her part, seemed eerily calm-faced. A sudden burst of power knocked Miranda away, fairly blowing her out of Zael's grip. There was a shriek as Miranda banged into something, and then she too, fell silent.

Suddenly, Zael blazed purple above her. Shepard tried to swing up her pistol, tried to take the shot, but a biotic fist wrenched the weapon from her grasp. Zael's fist slammed down on her wounded leg once, twice, thrice. Shepard felt, and heard, a scream rip out of her.

"Now who's the fuck-up?" Zael hissed. Shepard tried once more to struggle to her feet, but Zael's hand came down and knotted itself in her hair. She was being dragged. Shepard's hands shot out, seeking to seize Zael's ankle and yank her down. Her reward was a boot in her kidney. Another wail of pain.

No. It couldn't go down like this. Once more, Zael half-dragged, half-yanked her down the passageway. Shepard's hand crept down to her left boot, to the combat knife she kept there at all times. She snatched it free of the sheath and then lashed out blindly at Zael's arms. She was rewarded with a squeal of pain.

The pain in Shepard's leg was so hot and horrible. It spasmed and throbbed, and she didn't think she'd ever felt anything that hurt so bad. Even when she was spaced, and she'd run out of air, the burning of nothingness in her lungs hadn't hurt so badly. That was more like going to sleep.

Zael was reeling back, clutching bleeding hands, and giving Shepard just enough time to get to her feet. With monumental effort, Ezmay forced herself up, forced herself steady on her leg (now screaming with agony) and took a defensive stance. Yeah….she'd be great in battle right now. Cutting Zael had only seemed to enrage her. Shepard may have all her cybernetic upgrades, her stubbornness, her will to live, but Zael had wounded rage, biotics that would have easily rivaled Jack or Samara, and fewer debilitating wounds. Shepard simply couldn't keep up. She managed to block a few strikes, and to get one more slice in with her knife before Zael blazed once more with the biotic fury and leveled Ezmay. Again, Zael began to strike while Shepard was down, but this time, she didn't immediately stop. Shepard felt ribs crack, and then break on either side. She screamed as her knee dislocated. Fell silent and felt paralyzed momentarily as Zael's fists rained on her head. She saw stars.

"EDI!" Shepard cried out. It was the only thing she could do. EDI seemed to answer her back, and yet, it was like there were shouts coming from up and down the passageways. Shepard heard Zael's breath rasping, felt the asari dragging her once more by her scalp. A door hissed open and she bumped over the threshold. The jarring hurt her leg and knee, and ripped more screams from her.

Zael was hissing frantically now.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit…"

Shepard couldn't see where she was. She raised her hand to her face, and wiped liquid from her eyes. Blood. The metallic smell told her it was blood. There was another smell, of a space rarely used. Of carpeting that was pristine and never-walked-upon. Shepard heard the beeps of keys being pressed, heard more shouts coming closer, heard the door for the room slamming shut.

Just before she passed out, she realized exactly where Zael had taken her. The escape pods. Zael was escaping from the Normandy in one of the emergency pods, and she was taking Shepard with her.

*****

Garrus was enraged.

As soon as the display on Joker's console lit up, confirming that life pod 2 was successfully away, the other two ships had disengaged. One ship firing warning shots over the bow of the Normandy, tagging the hull and guarding the other ship as it picked up the life pod.

Once the battle with Zael had started, EDI had informed him and the other main crew members what was happening. Swearing, Garrus had abandoned the forward battery, and made a mad dash for the elevator. He wheeled in surprise when he saw Thane and Samara right behind him. The lift didn't work, though.

"Zael has disabled the elevator, as well as life support and lights for level 5. I urge you to hurry; she is decimating Shepard's party. You should be able to take the engineering shafts down to level 5."

Garrus found himself spouting swear words that he didn't even know existed. The shafts ran down through the AI server core. He almost hadn't fit in the narrow tunnel.

He didn't move fast enough, though. He'd started cursing himself the moment he saw the door of the life pod slam shut with Zael and Shepard inside, and he hadn't stopped since. He was terrified that that was going to be the last image he had of Ezmay, lying battered and broken on the floor of the life pod, with Zael standing over her. So much red blood. He found a trail of blood leading from the pod, back to where the combat had taken place at the base output.

Joker was good, but he hadn't been good enough to follow the two ships. After they'd scooped up the life pod, they'd spooled up the engines and almost literally _disappeared_. The speed was so startling that Joker realized the dogfight had been all for show. They'd been playing with him. He might have been able to maneuver enough to take out one of the bastard ships, but if they'd wanted to race him, he would have went home crying to mommy. This was Joker's cross to bear; that he'd been duped and outmatched and hadn't even caught on.

The damage to the Normandy wasn't severe, but it was great enough that they'd been forced to idle and make repairs. With halting steps, Garrus had made his way to the CIC. It was the strangest thing. He was pumped so full of adrenaline, yet he felt numb. He barely felt Miranda's touch on his arm. Garrus looked dully to the Cerberus operative. She'd taken a bad blow in the fight. Her head was bandaged and blood was seeping through near her temple.

"Officer Vakarian, you have the ship." Her voice was soft.

"What?" He'd misheard. What was there to do but find Shepard? Who cared about the ship? He'd happily sacrifice everyone on board if it would have stolen Shepard back to him.

"You're the XO. Shepard's been taken. That makes you acting captain."

Hell with this ship! To hell with Miranda's conciliatory gesture. He leaned, bracing his talons against the console in front of him. Had Miranda steered him to the galaxy map? He tried to think.

"What are your orders?" Miranda said again. Her hand was on Garrus's forearm. He jerked away from her.

"We find Shepard."


	10. Chapter 10

In the days just after Sidonis's betrayal, Garrus had found himself in a personal form of hell. When one is young and idealistic, the idea goes that the galaxy is just; everything would sort itself out. Even when Garrus grew up, he still maintained that streak of honour and vulnerability a mile wide. Saren's escapades began to strip away those illusions, and Garrus felt within himself the first stirrings of discontent and hopelessness.

Then along came Shepard.

The little human female with colouring like a hero from an old pirate vid, and the reckless attitude that actually got shit _done,_ brought him purpose. Working with Shepard had preserved something in him- _she_ had preserved something in him. Whether they were fighting alongside of each other, or chatting by the Mako, Garrus finally felt a sort of peace. She was intent on setting the universe right and it saved Garrus to be with her. By Shepard's side, the galaxy could be saved. She inspired him to save himself.

And then she died.

Shepard's death had torn the soul out of him. He hadn't been on the Normandy with her- cursed himself every day for that. Two barren years while he tried to put his life back together. C-Sec had spat on him. Afterwards he returned and tried to reintegrate, but it wasn't enough. It didn't work. Where before he had leeway to do his police work, now he found only red tape and beareaucratic bullshit. So he went to Omega. His vigilantism had felt like an homage to Shepard. It was what _she_ would have done. Would have seized the station by the balls and not rested until every single piece of shit on that godforsaken rathole got what they deserved. Do the right thing- fix the wrongs. The galaxy would be grateful, he thought.

And then Sidonis. He found his team dead, found his dreams shattered once again. But then she'd come back. She'd resurrected him. Once more, his heart felt peace. The closeness developed between them, and he found himself with more hope. When he lay in her arms, and buried himself within her, the universe seemed right once more. It was a precious second chance. Although it was one he felt he bumbled through, when she chose him over pining for Kaiden Alenko, he knew everything was going to be alright.

Now the blackness in Garrus's heart eclipsed and shadowed the hopeless anger he'd felt before at her death. If anything happened to her, if she _died _again, he didn't know what would happen. He'd rip the fabric out of the space-time continuum. He'd tear the Terminus systems apart with his bare hands and find the fuckers that had ended his glorious Ezmay Shepard. He'd kill them slow and do unspeakable things. If she died, he might as well die himself.

Arranging a meeting with the Shadow Broker was absurdly easy. Actually, it was a meeting with an agent, but it was as good as the Broker himself. No one knew if the Shadow Broker was one man or many. Barla Von once confessed to Shepard, who subsequently told Garrus, that he suspected the Shadow Broker was actually a group of individuals. It had been through Barla Von that Garrus was able to arrange a meet up with the Broker's agent.

No smile graced Garrus's face when the agent entered the private room at the Dark Star lounge. No sense of contentment or ease. He wasn't playing it cool and unconcerned. Garrus didn't care if the galaxy knew he was out for blood. He didn't know how much time he had. But he'd be godamned if he was going to lose her again.

The agent was nondescript as all agents of this type should be. A tallish man with blond hair close-cropped sighted him and made his way across the private area to where Garrus sat. The table was strewn with glasses and bottles; Garrus had been steadily working his way to a good drunk. One of Shepard's cigarettes burned down in an ashtray; he wasn't smoking it. It made him feel a little less on edge to smell the familar scent of Turkish tobacco. The agent greeted him.

"XO Vakarian. My apologies on your recent promotion."

"Sit down." Garrus nodded to a chair opposite him. His words were just starting to slur.

"I'm sorry about your mate. Point of advice? Try to avoid drinking yourself into a stupor before these kinds of meetings." The agent said as he sat.

"My mate. You people work fast. By the way she's not dead."

"I…see." The agent leaned to the side, looking vaguely uncomfortable. Gloved fingers slipped beneath his coat lapel. Garrus tensed, his talons clicking the safety off of the pistol he'd never let out of his hand. The agent paused, hearing the click, then withdrew a pack of cigarettes from an inner pocket. Garrus noted with a wry look that it was the same brand Shepard smoked. The smell of the tobacco firing struck a chord in him.

"The Shadow Broker is curious as to why you've requested this meeting." Said the agent, drawing deep on the cigarette. Bluish smoke curled around them.

"I want the location of Zael Hollinth's base of operations. I want to know who hired her to kill Shepard."

The agent blew smoke out in a pseudo-laugh.

"Well, if we knew where her base of operations was, do you think she'd still be in business?"

"Depends if she's making it lucrative for you not bring her down." Garrus went out on a limb. It was unlikely that the Shadow Broker and Zael Hollinth would co-exist for so long without one destroying the other. There had to be some kind of business arrangement. Garrus's bet was rewarded with a startled look on the agent's face.

"That's…privileged information. How did you find that out?"

"You're not the only one with sources." The turian's voice drew out the s, making it an almost hiss.

"Very well. We can talk."

"That's what I thought." An asari waitress came around with a tray, offering drinks. Garrus pondered ordering another drink, but decided otherwise. The pounding of the music was seeping into his head, making him feel altogether too numb.

"The information about who hired Zael will be easier to get for you than Zael's location. I'll have to talk to the Broker himself for that."

"Which Broker?" Garrus asked, again earning a strange look. The agent waved this away.

"There is only one Shadow Broker."

"Whatever." Garrus felt like snarling.

"As you know, we don't take payment in the form of credits. What can you offer the Shadow Broker in return for this information?" Now the agent ground out the cigarette. His lips twisted upwards in a smirk.

"You can have Zael. I'll capture her for you. She has to be cutting in on the Broker's business somehow."

"If, as you say, the Broker has a business transaction with Zael Hollinth, why would we benefit from having her in our possession?"

"Is that the way of it?" Garrus asked. The alcohol and the hopelessness stripped away his inhibitions. He had thought he was a badass, picking off mercs on Omega. Now he felt like he truly had nothing to lose. "Should I expect the Shadow Broker willingly shares his business with a psychopath? I suspect it's something more than that. More like…the Broker wants her, but Zael's holding something over the Shadow Broker that keeps her safe."

The agent was silent. Stared at Garrus.

"XO Vakarian." A disembodied voice came from nowhere. Garrus jerked upright in his chair, glancing around to see if anyone heard. The music and other diversions of the Dark Star were enough to ensure their privacy. The voice was electronic, masked, filtered.

"Ah, the Shadow Broker himself." Garrus feigned relaxing in his seat. "You've been listening this entire time."

"You're playing hardball. I don't know whether to be amused or annoyed."

Garrus's visor told him that hardball was a baseball metaphor. He flicked the information away, irritated.

"Are you going to do business, or are you going to sulk over your injured pride?" Garrus asked the disembodied Shadow Broker.

"I must admit. My arrangement with Zael Hollinth has been less than satisfactory. I would have brought our agreement to an end some time ago, but she pays very well. Now that I consider your offer though, I realize that were her business were to become my business, it would be a more attractive alternative in the long run."

"You just now realize this?" Garrus asked. Shepard's cigarette had long burned out. He lit another one, just to have the smell around him.

"Of course, were you to offer us…Dr. T'Soni instead, it would be a much more pleasing offer."

"I have no interest in getting between you and Dr. T'Soni. You understand. We have a history." Irritation wasn't just bubbling in Garrus now. It was starting to burn.

"Well, I suppose I cannot fault you for that. Zael's base of operations is on Invictus, in the equatorial belt." Garrus's mandibles flared in surprise. "You'll know already, of course, that the equator is quite inhospitable to turian physiology. I would recommend an environmental suit if you plan on going in yourself. As for Zael's client, that will take some time. We know that she has had substantial dealings with turian interests in the past year."

"How much time?" Garrus demanded.

"Calm yourself. Our resources are not insubstantial. I would be able to forward the information to you before you reach Invictus." The agent shifted as the Shadow Broker continued.

"One more thing." Garrus said. "Zael told me before she took Shepard that I was getting my comeuppance, in a manner of speaking."

"If we hold that information, it will be included."

"I appreciate it." That information would be nice, but to Garrus's mind, it wasn't essential.

"We appreciate doing business with you. We will forward a contact number for you with the information you requested. Please get in touch when you've secured Zael, and we will arrange another meeting to exchange goods."

Already, Garrus's mind was whirling with plans. They could set out for Invictus, but it was idiocy to storm Zael's base without knowing the layout or anything else. He stood, nodding to the agent. He was turning to leave when the man spoke.

"Officer, before you go…"  
"What is it?" A headache was beginning to form behind Garrus's eyes, but he spared a moment to force focus on the man.

"Shepard was a great woman." The agent nodded, as if this were high praise and an appropriate eulogy.

"She's not dead." Garrus snapped.

His footsteps faded into the bass of the music, leaving the agent and the decadence of the Dark Star behind.

********

Zaeed looked up from the schematics of Zael's base and fixed him with that weird, off-kilter stare. The wonky eyes always bothered Garrus; he never knew quite where to look on Zaeed's face. As for the schematic, Garrus didn't quite know what he was going to say, but he was willing to bet that he wasn't going to like it.

"I've got to hand it to you, mate. You've gone fucking insane."

"I didn't ask for a critique. I asked for possible infiltration strategy." Garrus's voice was low, flat. The lack of tolerance was evident.

"Well, you're in for a ride. I've seen presidential palaces less fortified. Part of it has to do with the flora and fauna. The first tactic that comes to mind is stealth. Point of entry would be ventilation shafts. Maybe the entrance from the shuttle pad. Unless they've got a shipment of supplies coming in, it's like to be less well guarded."

Garrus's talons came up. Lately, he'd adopted the habit of stroking the scar on his mandible when deep in thought. He frowned, eyes searching the schematics for possible weaknesses.

_Just give me an in_. He thought. _Anything. _

"The real bitch of this…" Zaeed continued. "…is that our usual modus operandi is to blitzkrieg whatever target we take. We can't do that here. This Zael knows this area better than we do, I'm thinking. So stealth is going to be a challenge because we cannot achieve surprise when we have to fight the undergrowth to get there."

Dammit. The man had a point.

"What about a scorpion attack? Surely the can't have enough forces to be able to defend two flanking attacks and an air strike besides?" Garrus asked.

"That would be an option if we knew where Zael was keeping Shepard. Fuck, for all we know, she might not even be in the damn base and we're wasting what little time we have."

"There is another option." A phlegm-choked voice sounded from the door. Several faces and heads jerked up to face the person speaking.

Thane stood on the threshold, the green and once-brilliant yellow of his face now a sullen jaundiced colour. Garrus started to speak, but Zaeed cut him off.

"We're all ears."

"The strength of this team lies in brute force and a willingness to persevere to victory. We could use a distraction, a feint attack at the main entrance, while I take Officer Vakarian in unnoticed to find the Commander."

"Pardon me saying so, but your health isn't doing so great right now." Zaeed said. God, his idea was a good one. In fact, the more Garrus thought about it, the more he liked it.

"This is true. I expected that I should die in our assault on the Collector base, but we all know how that went." There was a wry smile on Thane's face. "It appears that that happened for a reason."

"Why not just go in yourself?" Zaeed asked. "Christ knows we could use Vakarian's aim with a sniper rifle in the feint attack?"

"Ah, yes. Well, as you mentioned, my health is not…doing so great."

Silence settled in the room like a noxious cloud. Zaeed had been a late-comer to the party, showing up just in time to help at the Collector base. It wasn't like the three of them had hung out at Afterlife and had a beer. Still….the implication of Thane's statement, that he would not survive the trip out of Zael's base hung in the air. It was the elephant in the room that no one had wanted to acknowledge before.

For a moment, the two just looked at each other. Thane cocked his head and blinked those huge black eyes at Garrus.

"Yes?" He said. The word sank into a mini coughing fit that subsided relatively quickly.

"Shepard said you were dying. I had no idea how far it was." The awkwardness was rolling off of Garrus in waves. It was there for more than one reason. How did you talk to a dying man? You could never be sure what to say, never knew what would bring comfort or confusion. No one knew what lay beyond mortality.

"I asked her to keep it quiet. I would prefer to find death in the same way that I navigated life. The shadows are comforting to me. I have done more in these few short weeks with Shepard and this team than I did before in my whole life."

"So you're thinking you're not going to make it out of the base?" Garrus asked Thane point-blank.

"No, I do not think I will. It requires….an immense effort merely to stand before you now."

"Why choose to die this way?"

Thane began to pace around the console of the comm room. His hand continually trailed along the polished surface of the table; Garrus did not miss this fact.

"Surely a warrior like you can understand why I would prefer to go out in such a way?"

"I can. But I get the sense that there's something more beyond simply wanting to die in combat." Garrus folded his arms. He didn't mean to be harsh with the drell, but given the events of the past day…Well…. His emotions felt raw and desensitized.

The drell smirked then, in a way that Garrus once would have thought was cheeky. Now it was a ghost of that.

"Do you think you're the only one that's drawn to her?"

No. Garrus didn't think he was the only one. He just never thought of Thane having any emotions at all, really. This was…completely from out of left field. He didn't know how to respond.

"She never showed any interest. I confess a certain ….softness for the Commander. However, she chose you. I will help you to find your beloved."

Garrus jerked away, suddenly embarrassed in a way he didn't think was possible after the past day. His talons came up to cover the back of his neck. So that was what this was about. Thane's own way of showing his love for the Commander and a final goodbye. Thane continued.

"I called her 'siha.' This means a warrior-angel in my native language. There is another story within the cosmology. That of the Divine Pair, Jala and Balun. The story goes that Jala was the best and most beloved warrior of the great King Balun. So fierce was Jala's prowess in battle that Balun need never descend his throne to sully his hands with battle. Even still, he was always at her side, because he knew that Jala drew her strength from knowing that Balun was there to support her. That he would do what she couldn't." Thane stopped circling the comm desk and rested against it. Assiduously, Garrus avoided the drell's eyes. "It came one day that Jala was called to fight on Balun's behalf, the kingdom's behalf, because an enemy arose so frightening and terrible that it threatened to swallow the whole of the world. Jala knew that she must stop this great evil because of so very many innocents who would die. So she took up her sword and engaged the enemy. The battle was long and horrific. She struck a grand blow, but was felled by the enemy king's evil lackey, who shot a poison arrow into Jala's heart. Balun was there, as he ever was, and he executed the lackey. The story goes that Balun's love for Jala was so great that the fire of it burned the poison from her veins. Together they rose and smote down the vast evil that threatened the world. On the eve of their triumph, Balun rose Jala up and set a crown on her head. He made her queen over the land and the people that she had sacrificed herself to save. The exact wording goes 'And so the Sun fell in love with the Moon. Their partnership illuminated the galaxy, and their love was so all-encompassing that one may see the evidence of it in every glimmer of the stars.'"

Thane tilted his head, and gave Garrus a wry smile.

"Of course, this was an early creation story to explain why the sun and moon on the drell homeworld rose and set in tandem and to explain what the stars were, but it is one of the most treasured stories we have."

"That's a very nice story." Garrus said. The words amused Thane, who laughed.

"Dying has a strange effect on people sometimes." Thane continued. "I have never found myself to be quite so sentimental before. Every religion has its own version of the Divine Pair, I believe."

There was no equivalent within turian spirituality; some turians had picked up other religions. He had heard of some who had picked up old Earth religions that had stories like this, but Garus him had no frame of reference.

All the same, how was he supposed to say this? _Hey, thanks for volunteering to die, buddy! You're a real pal!_

"I….Thank you. It's quite…" And he was back to gibbering like an idiot. The need to thank Thane was at odds with being so emotionally ragged.

"No need."

"This is very touching, ladies, but shall we get back to the business at hand?" Zaeed chimed in, sounding impatient.

Thane coughed as quietly as he could, and turned his unblinking stare to the schematics. The glare that came from Garrus could have withered worlds. Zaeed shifted his feet, and looked back to the display.

"Right then. A feint attack at the front door. We'll need heavy weaponry; that won't be a problem. We got enough heavy weapons to occupy a colony." The human's voice was dry; it was impossible to tell if there was a hint of mirth, or impatience. We come a'knocking. What did you have in mind?" His eyes went to Thane, who studied the layout with a critical eye. Garrus merely watched in silence.

"I would just as soon assume the shuttle pad will be guarded. It's an obvious weak spot in case of an attack, which Zael will anticipate since she has taken the Commander. There will be a point of roof access. There always is. We will use that. The rest we will handle as we go."

"It's that easy, huh?" Thane looked up to find Garrus eyeing him.

"Some things you can plan. Some things you can't. We will memorize the interior of the base and simply take the shortest route to the location the Broker gives us."

"For the feint attack, I'd recommend a couple of flybys and some shots with the thanix to cut back some of the vegetation. This will hopefully distract them enough that they'll fail to notice the shuttle approaching at a low altitude. Once the Normandy leaves the area, we start bombing the hell out of them. Someone will need to stay behind to have the shuttle ready to go when we find out than the Commander is gotten out safely."

"How soon can we have the shuttle in the air once the signal is given?" Garrus put the question to Zaeed.

"Matter of minutes. You'll have to find a good hiding place or hold off any of the guards who might have found you out. Hopefully, they'll be so distracted by the clusterfuck at the front door that they don't even realize you're there." He said. "Now then, what about extraction of Zael?"

During this time, Garrus had been making laps around the comm room. The question brought him up short, and he turned to the pair with a cold, calculated look in his eyes. A brow jerked up over Thane's eye; Zaeed straightened up.

"We're not extracting Zael."

"What the fuck are you on about?" Zaeed said. "You had a deal with the Shadow Broker."

"And the Shadow Broker had a deal with the Collectors to turn over Shepard's remains. If we get out of there with Shepard, I'm contacting Liara T'Soni and giving her the meetup with the Shadow Broker's agents."

"Betrayal begets betrayal." Thane murmured. He might have meant it as a warning to Garrus, but that wasn't how it was taken.

******

Opening her eyes to blurred vision was becoming an all-too-familiar theme of the past few weeks. This time, she honestly couldn't move. Pain rocketed through her extremities with every breath she took, and every time she tried to flex. Shepard tried to turn her head to look at her surroundings, and the resulting nausea made her moan.

_Godamn, it hurts. Every damn thing hurts._

"Take it easy, or you're going to make a mess." A voice said, emerging from the darkness. Shepard squinted, trying to make out who it was. It wasn't until the bearer of the voice was almost upon her that she could see the slim outline of a woman, the purple skin, the smug features. "Of course, not that I care if you mess yourself. You're on a limited time span as it is."

Shepard's tongue felt like it was wrong. With a great effort, she spoke.

"Where am I?"

"You're on Invictus. I'm waiting for my client to come in. As soon as she's here, I'll be shuttling over and she'll do with you as she pleases." Zael folded her arms. The multi-faceted anger and the shifting emotions Shepard and Garrus saw in the brig cell was no longer there. Now she seemed as dead and void of emotion as a corpse.

_She's talking to me. Must mean I'm going to die._

"Who is it?"

"All in good time. I expect she'll want a good, long word with you when she arrives."

Shepard managed a weak laugh.

"Well, aren't I the popular one."

"Yeah, your dance card is full. You have your mate to thank for that." Zael came closer, and bent to raise up Shepard's eyelids one by one. Cool fingers slid to lay against Shepard's wrist.

_Checking my pulse. Why? _Shepard thought.

"Who's that?" If she hadn't been good and snowed under, Shepard would have sat up straighter in the chair.

"Gods, you are truly ignorant." Those cool fingers slid under the collar of Shepard's uniform jacket and yanked downwards. The clasps snapped, and the jacket was torn off. Fingertips found the scars under the straps of Shepard's undertop. The touch brought memories flooding back

_The afterglow had faded quickly when Garrus raised himself up from Shepard and saw what he'd done in the height of his passion. Three identical lacerations either side of Shepard's throat, streaking up over her collarbones and down over her shoulder blades. There was blood on his talons. Garrus freaked._

"_Oh my…Oh, Shepard. I didn't mean…" He jerked back from her, still naked, and fumbled out of the bed. _

"_Garrus, wait!" She was already sitting up, feeling blood trickling._

"_No! I was afraid of this..I.." He was shaking his head, picking up clothes and putting them back down. She saw him dart up the steps to her bathroom and heard water running in her bathroom. Shepard swung her legs over the side of the bed and followed._

_The turian was leaning over the sink, wringing out a cloth in the sink basin, and washing the blood off of his hands. Her hands shot out and closed over his claws. He looked up at her, a wild expression in his eyes._

"_Stop." She said. She knew she was still bleeding. Garrus looked at the red streaks, and wordlessly raised the clothe to press against the cuts. She knew better than to allow the hiss of pain to escape her. Instead, she stood stoicly, and let him clean her up. He didn't seem to calm down until he'd found a medi-gel and she'd allowed him to smooth the calming salve over the cuts. They began to heal almost immediately. Quiet, she turned her back to him and let him tend to the other side._

"_I knew there was a chance…I tried not to." His talons shook as he continued patting the gel on her shoulder blades._

"_Hush…" She craned her neck, and looked up at him over her shoulder. _

_Garrus heaved a ragged sigh. Without warning, his arms suddenly came up and around her, and he pressed her to him there in the bathroom. His chest burned against her back, and he bent his head to nuzzle at her ear. Shepard reached up and laced her arms through his. God, he felt so good against her. Even with the pain stinging in her shoulders, she relished the hard length of his body against her back. It was where he belonged._

"_I won't hurt you again." Garrus whispered._

"_Hush." She said again, this time turning her mouth so she could lay a kiss on his scarred mandible. "It was an accident. I know you won't."_

"_I won't." He said again. His voice was firm with conviction this time._

"_I know. Trust me, Garrus. I'm not mad."_

_Again, another labored sigh behind her._

"_You're so delicate." He said._

"_I am _not_ delicate. I'm a big girl. I can handle a cut every now and again." _

_Garrus shook his head._

"_No." A sigh. "Turians are rougher, I guess… I didn't prepare. Nothing I've researched prepared me. I mean, I should have known, but I didn't think."_

"_Hey…" She turned around, and pressed herself up against him. This time, locked in his embrace, she tucked her head under his chin. "There's a lot of firsts ahead for us."_

"_At least I didn't mark your neck…" He said softly._

"Just as I thought." Zael smiled in Shepard's face, and then began to move away. "That's a pretty common thing, you know. Inexperienced turians tend to forget that squishy beings like us don't have plates."

"Beings like us, huh? You've got some turian marks of your own?"

Zael turned, setting herself down on top of a table. She crossed her legs, and looked down her nose at Shepard. Her feet kicked in the air, swinging her feet. Shepard lolled her head and forced her focus on Zael.

"As a matter of fact I do. If he'd marked your neck, you would have had to get tattoos."

"Uh..yeah, he mentioned tattoos."

"I bet he did." Zael's voice was almost friendly. "You're both still fumbling in the dark, aren't you? Not surprising. Human and turian mating customs aren't very highly evolved yet. Those scratches…they're a sort of pre-engagement. I bet you would have looked so lovely as a bride."

Shepard gave up. She let her head roll back over the chairback and laughed.

"It'd be a June wedding. I'd wear white. He'd be dashing in a tuxedo."

"You're awfully nonchalant. Human trash like you…you tend to get a lot of shit for breeding outside of your race."

"Who said anything about breeding?" The light above Shepard was blinding. In moments of lucidity, when her body managed to fight off the drugs, she could see that the room had a high ceiling with floodlights periodically spaced over the rafters. Shepard tried to move her wrist and felt the sting of an IV needle in her arm.

"You're very securely tied. I wouldn't move too much. I don't know how to put needles back in veins. You'll give yourself an embolism."

"What's all the stigma about?" Ezmay asked. For now, she'd rest. Needed to focus every scrap of her being on staying conscious.

"Of course you knew about the tattoos and the marks. It evolved out in the Terminus systems first. Lots of lonely outposts. People found themselves getting close and cozy with species they'd never considered as romantic possibilities before."

"Knew about the tattoos. Didn't know why he freaked out about the marks so much." For now, Shepard went along with the conversation. Zael laughed.

"Yep. Turians all assume a basic mating posture. The claws hold their partners down. If you were turian, you'd have plates right there, and not a scar in sight. So, of course, when humans start showing up with them, turians start setting down their own brand of protocol and hierarchy. They can't resist it, you know. The entire lot of them are obsessed with rules."

"You're being awfully chatty neighbourly right now." Shepard said. She fought the drugs enough to raise her head. Dammit, she must be a total mess.

"I don't have any emotional investment in you. Why not? I don't have any emotional investment in anyone really." Zael said, very warm.

"You're a sociopath."

"Call it what you will. Anyway. So, over the years, we start seeing human females with tattoos on their neck. Some of the bolder ones just get the same markings right across their face. Very rare to see one with actual tattoos on their face once they perform wedding rites with a turian. Face tattoos, those hurt. I peg you as one of the ones who would have gone for ink." Zael smiled, her eyes moving over Shepard in such a way that reminded the human of Morinth. "You have some very interesting scars."

"I'm flattered and all, but I've got a boyfriend right now."

There was a genuine laugh from Zael this time.

"Well, then…" Movement from Zael demanded Shepard's attention. The asari brought up a small black cylinder from her pocket as she approached. Shepard tried to jerk away, but Zael's hand held her head still. It wasn't much of a fight, really. Zael clicked the little cynlinder, and Shepard saw it was a cosmetic tube.

"Goes like this, doesn't it?"

At first Shepard was confused as to what Zael was doing. The asari drew lines on her face- over the bridge of her nose, up over her cheekbones under each eye and then up over the temple. She drew lines down each cheek, and then streaked them down along the jaw. It suddenly hit Ezmay.

Zael was drawing Garrus's markings on her. Under other circumstances, Ezmay might have laughed. Now it was just humiliating, as if she were black and having black-face drawn on her to mock her.

"I'm sorry it's not blue. Purple will have to do." The asari smiled a very warm smile at her, and then patted her cheek.

"What a bitch you are." Shepard said, trying to remain flippant. Anger was burning in her belly; how dare this psycho mock Garrus? "I don't think I want to be your friend anymore."

"My heart's broken." Zael resumed her seat on the table.

"What did you mean when you said I had Garrus to thank-"

Shepard never got a chance to finish the question. The sound of a door being opened startled both her and Zael. There were footsteps, the sounds of boots on pavement. Shepard couldn't see, but tried to count the steps.

Three…maybe four individuals?  
"Well. I was beginning to-"

Zael's voice was cut off by a gunshot. The blast brought a surge of adrenaline up in Shepard's body, and for a moment, she had clarity of vision. The asari wilted and fell from the table, blood and brains splattering on the concrete and wall. A small surge of satisfaction surged in Shepard's gut. And then she leaned to the side and vomited. The world swam and went dark.

When she came to again, she was still in that blasted chair, still cuffed, but feeling a least a bit more alert. A twist of her wrist told her the needle had been removed from her arm.

Three turians swam in her vision. One was more slender than the other two, shorter, and garbed in an exquisite blue outfit. In another life, Shepard would have itched to get that outfit for her off-duty wear.

She tried to clear her parched throat. It was scratchy; it hurt to speak.

"Who are you?"

The more slender of the three turians, the one with the charming outfit came close. The markings on her face were familiar. Shepard struggled to place them; if Garrus were here, he would have been able to tell her what colony they were from in an instant. It suddenly registered in Shepard's head that this was one of the illusive female turians. The delicate-looking plates and spindly talons gave it away. Claws sized Ezmay by the face and turned her head this way and that. Now Shepard cursed Zael for the markings. Maybe if she'd been really, really good, she could have convinced this turian that she was just some other science project. As it was, she had a strong suspicion that this was Zael's client, the one that Zael had planned to offer her to for forgiveness.

"Is this some sort of a joke?" The female turian asked. "Are Ezmay Shepard Vakarian now?"

"You see a ring on my finger?" Shepard spat.

"I see his marks on your face. You might have done a better job at it." The turian's voice was elegant, soft. Shepard felt talons slip under the strap of her undertop and once more, the scars were examined.

"Who the fuck are you?" Shepard demanded once more.

"Very nice language. It figures that a murderer would end up with your sort."

Shepard tried to kick, forgot about the dislocated knee. She was rewarded with a slash of pain from the kneecap and a smack across the face.

Once more, the turian came into focus. She stared into Shepard's face.

"I'm going to execute you anyway, so I don't suppose there's any harm in telling you. You should know it was Garrus who got you into this mess. You should rue the day that you ever spread your legs for him."

Shepard started to snarl, starting to snap out another demand, but the turian cut her off.

"I am Auralia Sidonis. My husband was Lantar Sidonis. Eye for an eye, and blood for blood. I paid for your death, but now I get to kill you myself."


	11. Chapter 11

The Shadow Broker, not knowing of the intended betrayal, delivered the promised information to Garrus a few scant hours after the turian collaborated with Zaeed and Thane about the attack strategy. The information came to Garrus in Shepard's cabin, while he lay in the bed and stared upward and out at the stars. He heard the beep from Shepard's private terminal, but did not immediately rise to check it. Garrus had taken to moving about the ship as if he was indeed the captain, and part of that had included coming and going from Shepard's cabin as he would. Before he'd always felt a sort of trepidation, entering her cabin without permission. Now, it felt natural. The worries about appearances had fallen away when she'd been taken. The cabin was his and hers, their den, the lair from which two alpha wolves would emerge to lead their pack. The mating instincts that each turian was aware of, but had to good grace not to talk about in polite company, were becoming stronger. It wasn't stripping away from his ability to conduct himself as a cognizant being; he wasn't devolving. There was a most definitely a possessive, protective feeling that rose in his heart when he thought of Ezmay.

Garrus sighed from the bed. He'd lay down because he realized he needed to sleep; his aim went to shit when he was tired. He courted sleep, but it declined to be seen.

It alarmed him how fast the mating drive had sprung up in him, particularly in response to a human. If this didn't work, he might as well bite down on the muzzle of his pistol; he'd be lost. He already walked a fine, grey line of morality. Garrus imagined that if Ezmay died, he'd turn into a real asshole.

"XO Vakarian. You have two new messages." EDI cued in.

"I know." He groaned. Dragged himself up off of the bed. No point in trying to sleep right now.

When he got to the terminal, he saw that instead of the Shadow Broker sending two messages, he had instead one from the Broker, and one from Staff Commander Kaiden Alenko.

"What the hell….?" Garrus was still blinking, still trying to figure out if he was seeing the message field correctly when the intercom fired up and Joker's voice flooded the room.

"Garrus, thought you might want to know that a couple of Alliance cruisers just revealed themselves. The weapons aren't hot. They're using the same kind of steal technology we are."

"I'm on my way up. Give me a minute."

Garrus brought up the first message. Broker very pleased about doing business, Shepard still on Invictus, spy says she's being kept in warehouse area because of added danger, etc, etc, etc…

'_Where in the bloody hell is the name of the client?'_

Garrus's scrolling through the message became more and more agitated. Until he spotted a name he knew. Until it hit him like a meteorite striking him in the head. He felt his gut clench, felt his bile rise in his throat.

Auralia Sidonis.

He remembered her, not vividly, but well enough to have that feeling of dread. Suddenly, it all snapped into place. The bombs, the hiring of an assassin, Zael taking Shepard while threatening Garrus. It was revenge, pure and simple. Auralia was taking vengeance on Garrus for killing Lantar by killing Garrus's mate. His mind shied away from the more permanent term. So he had brought this on her. His actions, which she had tried to stop during his interrogation of Harkin in the hunt for Lantar Sidonis's head, had caused her to be in pain, in danger. The feeling of guilt washed through him so powerfully that it nearly brought him to his knees. He had brought her so much pain. His mind went to the gashes he left on her. The beating at the hands of Zael.

_Like hell_. The rage rose in him suddenly. _I'm going to find her._

Shepard hadn't castigated him for cutting her up during sex. If she wasn't going to hate him for physically hurting her with his own claws, she wasn't going to hold it against him that his past had come back to bite them both in the ass. She wasn't that way, and she wouldn't want him to beat the hell out of himself. Once he got her out of there, he'd spend his life making it up to her.

At any rate, it seemed the Shepard's past was surfacing to bite them in the ass as well. Garrus flicked a claw and forwarded the message to Zaeed and Thane. Then he opened up Alenko's waiting message. A polite request to speak with Garrus at his earliest convenience. Alenko was nothing if not Mr. Etiquette.

Twenty minutes later, Garrus was strapped into his armour and moving with purpose towards the comm room. The crew knew better by now than to bother him with anything not an emergency and not Shepard-related. He shrugged off the stares, cut through Jacob's armory because the man at least had the good grace to keep his damn mouth shut most of the time, and stepped into the comm room. EDI greeted him.

"Ready to connect you to the Alliance ship, XO Vakarian."

"So he's out there?" He muttered as he stepped within the arc of light. Shepard had done this hundreds of times, and Garrus had always wondered what the comm technology was like.

"It appears so. Connecting you."

Garrus found himself plunged into darkness. Kaiden's face appeared before him, the perimeter outlined in black as if he were looking at a traditional view screen.

"Garrus."

"Kaiden."

The two lapsed into silence for a moment.

_Well, this is awkward._ He thought. Should he be the first to speak? Would that be proper protocol? Was the Alliance here to arrest someone? Garrus spoke first.

"What do you want?" When in doubt, getting the point always worked well.

"We uh…we have a spy in the Shadow Broker's network. We're here to help." Gods, Kaiden sound just as ill at ease as Garrus felt.

"I didn't know Shepard's disappearance was an Alliance matter."

"I'm not here on Alliance authority, Garrus."

If Garrus had eyebrows, they would have arched completely off his face in surprise.

"Who cut your umbilical cord?" The sarcastic remark was enough to draw a glare from Kaiden; Garrus realized that he was baiting Alenko, and chastised himself silently.

"The advantage of rank is being able to use it from time to time." Kaiden's tone was sour. "I'm here to help, Garrus. If you don't want it…"

"Sorry. It's been….a little emotional around here the past few days. Besides, you wouldn't leave. You're here for Ezmay."

Now it was Kaiden's turn to jerk in surprise. The mention of Shepard's first name…had that been an intimacy that she'd allowed the staff commander back on the SR-1? Garrus suspected not. That made him inordinately pleased.

"I was a little hard on her when we talked last."

It was on the tip of Garrus's tongue to tell Kaiden that he'd been an utter jackass on Horizon. He'd kicked her when she was down and needing him.

"Kaiden, we've got a coordinated plan that'll work. Adding your people to the mix is just going to gum up the works."

"How on earth can it possibly gum up the works to have more men when you take the base?" Now Kaiden was angry. Garrus could tell because his lips had disappeared and flattened out. It was like a slash on his face.

"We're not taking the base. We're distracting them at the main entrance and sending someone in to extract Ezmay. It's the easiest way."

"I'm offering you reinforcements. It doesn't matter what you do with them."

"And I'm refusing them. We are perfectly capable of extracting Ezmay on our own."

"You damn stubborn turian!" Kaiden cursed at him. "I'm offering to help. You need this. You don't realize what you're going up against."

"You abandoned Ezmay on Horizon. You understand why I'd be hesitant to accept your help."

"I didn't abandon her. She agreed to work with an organization that perpetuated some of the worst atrocities we've seen to date."

"You think the Alliance hasn't done some of its own atrocity-committing?" Garrus replied hotly. "They're all just organizations. Some just hide it better than the others. At least Cerberus recognized the threat and moved against it. That's a damn sight more than the Alliance or the Council did. And you're blindly following them. You threw her away and went with the top priority in your life. You can't just waltz back in and pick back up where you left off with Ezmay."

"Throw her away? You're out of line, Garrus. What happened between me and her was between me and her. She was my top priority. I can't ignore two years."

"Like she had a choice about those two years!" His talons were itching to ball up and punch Kaiden in the face. If only he could have beamed himself through the comm system somehow. How could the arrogant little prick be so deliberately obtuse about the whole thing?

"That's not the point. I tried to put her death behind me and when she suddenly appears out of thin air, she's working for Cerberus. And where do you get off calling her by her first name?!"

"I get off calling her that because I spend my nights sleeping with her. You lost her. And I don't need your help to recover her. We're perfectly capable of extracting _Ezmay_…" Garrus drew out her name just to be an asshole about it. "..from the base ourselves. In case you didn't notice, this team is used to tough situations."

With that, Garrus slammed his fist on the control console and cut off the connection to Alenko. Now he had his pound of flesh. He'd had time to savour that brief expression of shock and loss on Alenko's face before the connection shut down. Did the jackass actually think he could just pop back in and be welcomed like an old friend? He'd cast his lot; Garrus had seen the email Alenko had sent her after Horizon. Smug little shit.

Garrus stood and rounded on his heel. He fumed all the way down to the cockpit. Joker greeted him.

"The Alliance ships are breaking off."

"Take us to into the atmosphere."

"What did they want?" Joker complied; his question went unanswered.

"Make a flyby. We'll drop the shuttle and then take the Normandy out of firing range of the base. We have to assume that they've got anti-ship guns. We'll radio when we're ready to bring the shuttle back."

"You got it."

Garrus started to turn, to go down to the shuttle bay. Joker's hand shot out and caught his forearm. He looked to the pilot in surprise.

"Get her back." The look in Joker's eyes was unusually intense. There was an undertone to his voice that was desperate, sorrowful. Garrus's hand came down on Joker's shoulder and he squeezed gently.

"Even if I have to take the base apart screw by screw." He promised. With that, Garrus turned and cut back through the CIC. If he couldn't bring her back, he'd be dead himself.

********

The disadvantage to ruling through fear is that your forces don't give much of shit when you die. In the days before Lantar's death, Auralia might have been soft-spoken and gentle. She might have been quite the lady. It was impossible for Shepard to tell if that had been the case. Instead, she watched Auralia command Zael's forces as if there had never been any Zael at all. The mercenaries took orders and did as they were told. They didn't talk much around Shepard. All she could glean since Auralia had suddenly usurped Zael's place as intergalactic bitch was that Auralia didn't plan to immediately kill Shepard. She wasn't going to waste the opportunity for revenge on killing Shepard in some dirty hellhole on a planet that had meant nothing to either Auralia or Lantar. They were going somewhere and she hadn't decided where yet.

Auralia was also off her fucking rocker. That was pretty obvious. After she'd killed Zael, she'd left. An hour after that, she'd come back with her goon squad. They'd strapped Shepard's head down. At first, Shepard had jerked and struggled against the bonds. Then they'd brought out a tattoo gun.

Yeah. That was the first clue Shepard had that Auralia was a few tacos short of a combination plate.

Auralia had stood over Shepard, smirking that odd turian smirk, and watching her thug tattoo Garrus's marks on Shepard's face. She seemed satisfied with the work.

Shepard, for her part, would have preferred to have gotten this tattoo at a time and place of her own choosing.

_Oh, yeah. This bitch is nuts._ She thought. _This is incredibly surreal. I couldn't have dreamed this up if I'd snorted all the red sand in the galaxy_.

When Auralia's thug was done with the inking, she'd inclined her shoulder up as best she could in the restraints.

"Say, I've always wanted a dragonfly on my bicep. You think that would look too trashy?"

The guards had looked at each other as if she'd suddenly started singing opera. Auralia had been….less than amused. She'd only had to give her guards one look, and then the beating had started.

_I have really got to learn to watch my mouth._ Ezmay had thought.

At least she was out of the damn chair. Even with the dislocated knee, she had a semblance of mobility. Zael's drugs were still in her system, and she wasn't feeling much pain. The turians had wordlessly left and Ezmay'd had time to explore. And she discovered that the warehouse she was in was fortified pretty well. There wasn't anything interesting in the crates; no weapons, nothing useful.

So she'd crawled up against a wall and leaned her head against a nearby crate. It wasn't really the most comfortable position, but she couldn't complain. No one to listen.

When she was alone, it was hard to stay flippant and optimistic. She thought of Garrus, and her heart ached. At least she was going out with some permanent reminder of him on her. She had the scars, and she had the new tattoo. It was heading that way, she might as well admit it. They'd been through too much together. Their relationship had been short, but intense. The violence sort of stripped away all the bullshit preliminaries and left only the fluttery, happy moments behind. No games. At least there had been that; no games.

He would come for her. If he didn't, she'd know it wasn't any fault of his own, and she'd figure something out. But he had her back. She knew it.

She fell asleep. There wasn't any pain in sleep.

*********

Environmental suits were mandatory; Garrus knew Invictus's equator played havoc with turian physiology. He didn't know how it would impact the other members of the team. They sat, strapped into the shuttle, the hangar bay open to the atmosphere. Joker burned them in, then lowered the approach vector so they could drop out. Out of the windows of the shuttle, Garrus could see the lush, green landscape of Invictus come into better view. The landscape turned into green forests, and then he could see individual trees. The undergrowth was choking. The shuttle shuddered as Zaeed fired up the engines. Garrus felt the whole of the Normandy shake as the thanix cannon fired up.

They were making their first pass.

Outside the open hanger, the sky seemed to erupt into brilliant fireworks. The flare of blue around the Normandy's edge told him that some shots from the base were hitting; the shields were holding up. They hadn't unleashed anything that the Normandy couldn't handle just yet. A click from his left told him Thane had clutched his gun close. He could feel the tension in the shuttle's cabin crank up a notch.

The Normandy began its second pass. Now they were angled in such a way that they all could see the ground, the base. The beam of the thanix cannon was lacing out, streaking across the front of the base. Explosions lit up the groundscape; Garrus could see mercenaries scrambling and rushing to return fire.

Now for the third pass. The cannon would fire. They'd also launch missiles. Then the shuttle would go under cover of the explosions. As the shuttle flew over the base, he and Thane would make their jump from the shuttle and parachute onto a roof away from the action. He felt everyone in the cabin tense as the cannon began to lace out again.

"Listen to me!" He barked out. In one action, everyone looked to him. Miranda, Jacob, Jack, Samara, everyone. Once he had their attention, he continued.

"If it was any of you in there, Shepard would be out here herself. She'd blow a damn hole in the front gate and drag you out with her bare hands if she had to. We lose her, we lose any chance of stopping the Reapers when they come for good. Keep that in mind. She's loyal to you; she'd die for you."

The atmosphere in the cabin turned deadly; he saw Tali tighten her grip on her shotgun, saw Jacob heft the nuke gun into his lap.

Another quiver, this time in series as the missiles were launched. Zaeed powered up the thrusters of the shuttle and then they were free-falling out of the Normandy. It was hard to steer through the explosions. The shuttle rocked and quaked as they skittered through the turbulence. Thane's hand came down on the shoulder of Garrus's armour. The turian and the drell exchanged glances, and then the drell nodded.

"There!" Garrus followed where Thane pointed, and saw a strip of roof far away from the front gate where not a soul stirred. Miranda keyed open the door of the shuttle. Wind roared through the cabin.

"Give 'em hell!" Garrus yelled over the blast of air that nearly deafened him.

"Go!" Jacob nodded.

With that, Thane latched onto Garrus's shoulder plating, and the two soared out of the shuttle.

Adrenaline pumped through him. They were in free fall, plummeting towards the surface of Invictus at terminal velocity. When they'd reached just the right distance, Garrus tore at the pull on his chute and was yanked upwards as the silk caught the wind. He'd only practiced jumps like this in sims before; he was pretty damn proud of his landing if he did say so himself. The parachute threatened to drag him, but he hit the latch just like Thane had shown him and watched the wind catch the silk and gust it away. He saw, and heard, Thane hit the roof behind him. The assassin landed a lot less smoothly than Garrus expected.

"Garrus!"

He didn't know if it was the drell's health, or just bad timing, but the wind was tearing at him. Thane struggled to hit the release that would leave the harness on his body, but free the straps of the chute. Garrus swore, and wheeled to catch up to him. Thane's heels were dragging along the roof; Garrus caught him just before he would have been jerked out into the jungle. There was no time to undo the latch; he sliced through the straps with his claws.

The two collapsed in a heap just inches from the edge. Thane was gasping for breath; he curled in a paroxysm of coughing.

"Come on. You okay?" Garrus's own breath was ragged. He curled his talons in Thane's harness and pulled him to his feet.

"Give me a second. The atmosphere's humid here."  
The drell coughed, and then dragged in a long breath through what sounded like a swamp in his throat.

"Gotta go." Frustration was welling up in the turian; he was tempted to go, and drag the drell along by the harness. He didn't have to. Thane nodded, and jerked his head in the direction they should go.

"There's a manway. We'll go through there."

The manway, as they found, was secured with a lock. Thane inspected it, and then motioned for Garrus to stand back. He raised his pistol; Garrus noted that it had a long and wicked looking silencer that he'd never seen before. There were three muffled shots, and then Garrus stepped forward to slam his heel down on the cover. He kicked twice; the metal collapsed inwards. Thane immediately aimed the gun down into the darkness. The light on Garrus's omni-tool revealed it was all clear.

From the front of the building, they heard, and felt, an explosion. Both turned to look over their shoulder. The dust was still spreading out, fire still flowering out brilliantly. An alarm started up.

"They're disorganized." Thane observed. "Those should have been going off when we made our first strike."

"Maybe our luck's turning around." Garrus jerked his head towards the hole, and descended the ladder. Inside, it was dark and quiet. The ladder terminated at the metal catwalk. The echo of their movements told him they were in a warehouse; a cursory shine-around of the omni-tool confirmed his guess.

_Now, just to find her._

"We're in the warehouse grids." Thane's voice was quiet. "She should be in one of these. These catwalks go through the entire area."

The two crouched and Thane dialed up a schematic on his omni-tool. They had two warehouses between them and where the spy said Zael was holding Shepard. Garrus started to move off in that direction.

The warehouse beyond this one was dark as well. They were in luck. The catwalks terminated at the walls, with doorways between the warehouses. As they entered the next room over, they could see light spilling out of the far doorway.

"Should be the one." Garrus whispered.

"Lead on."

_This is way too easy. Something's going to go wrong. It always does._ Garrus thought.

They made their way over. Garrus was astonished by how silently they were able to move. When they reached the doorway, he peered inward. Floodlights illuminated the room. It was crammed with all sorts of crates and moving equipment. There was a metallic stink in the air that he recognized as blood. A hand came up, gesturing to Thane to wait.

Garrus pulled his sniper rifle out, and peered through the scope. He swept the room.

_There_. His heart seized. His breathe caught in his chest. She was there. She was leaning against the wall, against a crate. Her head was slumped over. He couldn't see her face, but he could see her chest was moving. Unconscious? Asleep?

Garrus narrowed his eyes. He searched the room through his scope, but couldn't see anyone else. A chair was half hidden behind a stack of crates; beyond that, Shepard was slouched against the wall. He gestured to Thane to move up.

Silently, they made their way over the catwalk. They were, perhaps, halfway to Shepard, when the doors of the warehouse slammed open, and a squad of turians moved in towards her. Shepard didn't raise her head. Thane and Garrus brought up their guns in tandem; Garrus was glad to see they were on the same page. A hail of bullets came down on the turians' heads. Now he could see Shepard's head jolt up, but he didn't have time to gaze at her.

The sniper rifle danced in his hand. Pull trigger, blood splatter, chamber a fresh round, sight, pull trigger. And now he was doing it to save Shepard. Despite what he'd said to her about being a bad turian, now he felt right indeed.

They slaughtered the team of turians quickly. Now he swung the scope over to look at Shepard, to see how bad the damage was. She was looking up at him and Thane, blood smeared across her face. Her lip was split and her eyes were swollen, her nose had obviously been broken. But that wasn't what brought Garrus up short.

She had his marks on her face.

Somehow he still managed to gesture at the door through his shock. Shepard turned her head, gazed through it, and then shook her head back to him. She could see further down the hall than he and Thane could from their vantage point.

"Go lock it down." He murmured to Thane, who moved away silently.

As the drell made his way down the door via a creative bunch of acrobatic moves, Garrus went over onto the ladder that would take him to Shepard. He held tightly to the outer edge and braced his feet on the same. He slid down and landed on the hard concrete. Then, before he realized it, he was bending over Shepard and gathering her up into his arms.

"I knew you'd come." She said. She smiled, didn't cry, didn't collapse into an emotional mess. That was what he loved about her. Even with her body torn half to hell, she was so strong. He started to twine his arm under her knees to carry her cradled to him, but she yelped when he touched her knee. A closer inspection showed him it was twisted horribly, her lower leg flopping in way that it shouldn't have been able to. Thane was suddenly behind him, watching.

"It's dislocated." Shepard said between breaths. It must have hurt like a bitch.

"If we fix it, she'll gain back some semblance of mobility." Thane's voice was quiet. He coughed.

And it was going to hurt something fierce to do that. Garrus had his own experiences on the receiving end of field medicine.

"Do it." There was no hesitation in Shepard's voice.

"Are you sure?" Garrus asked her.

Shepard didn't respond. Instead, she unhooked the miniature flashlight that was hanging from Thane's belt and clamped it between her teeth.

Garrus had never fixed a dislocated knee before, much less a human knee. The assassin took over; at least drell and human skeletal structure was similar. Thane's hand slid under the injured knee and fingers pressed into the soft flesh at the back of the leg.

"Bend her leg, and then straighten it out again very slowly."

Garrus took a shaky breath, and then did what he was told. Bending it must have hurt. Shepard's hand came down on his shoulder armour. When he looked up at her, her face was turned skyward.

Once the leg was bent, he straightened it out just as Thane had told him too. He watched Thane's other hand press through the fabric of Shepard's trousers and find the kneecap, which was floating loose and on the side of her knee. He poked the patella gently back towards its correct position as Garrus straightened out her leg. It popped back into place with a sickening crunch, and he heard an exhale of breath from Shepard.

"Now bend and straighten it once just to make sure we have it." Thane directed him.

Shepard's leg bent and straightened without any more trouble. It was moving normally.

"We should wrap it to prevent swelling." Thane said.

Shepard took the flashlight out of her mouth, and Garrus could see tiny silver marks in the black metal from where she'd bit down.

"Fuck the swelling, Thane. We need to go. That Auralia broad is nuts."

"As you wish, siha."

'Garrus, we've got some reinforcements. Why didn't you tell us the Alliance was coming?' The earpiece crackled. Both Thane and Garrus heard that. Thane looked towards Garrus with a questioning glance.

Kaiden. He'd ignored what Garrus had told him and came anyway.

'Make sure they stick to the plan.' He told Miranda.

'I can try. Commander Alenko's said to tell you that his spy says you're running out of time. The spy's with Auralia and says she's coming towards you.'

"Godammit." Garrus said.

"What's the matter?" Ezmay asked. She let Garrus pick her up and steady her on her feet. She might have been dizzy; she swayed and braced her hands on his cowl for a moment.

"We're on a clock now. They're coming here."

"Well, it's time for an exit, don't you think?"

"Back the way we came. Hurry." Thane nodded towards the ladder.

Climbing took an agonizing amount of time. As they passed back over the catwalk, now Garrus could see Zael's body slumped lifeless on the floor. At least she'd gotten what was coming to her.

They cut back through the warehouses. The ladder up to the manway was waiting for them. Garrus went first, and then leaned down to grab Shepard's hands when she was far enough up the ladder for him to reach her. Thane was part way up when the doors to the warehouse slammed open and the lights went on. Garrus heard a familiar scream.

"There!" Auralia shouted.

Gunfire. A couple of shots hit home and took Thane in the leg. Garrus saw bright orange blood splatter out. Through strength of will, the drell hoisted himself up rung over rung and Garrus yanked him up and out. The drell's legs looked like shredded meat.

"Zaeed, now would be a great time for you to pick us up." He said into his radio.

'On my way. I'll be there in a minute, tops.'

"Garrus!" Thane had crawled and was holding the manway door shut. Someone was trying to climb up and out and was pushing up on the door. With a curse, Garrus moved to help him. There was a sudden lightening of a load on his back, and suddenly Shepard was there with his pistol.

"Let them open it." She said.

As the manway door blasted open, she crammed the pistol down the hole and started pulling the trigger. Bright blue blood began to spray. An arc of the liquid went across his neck and Shepard's cheek. Then she braced herself on Garrus's shoulder and kicked down into the hole. A crunching sound told him that her foot and met with purchase. She was righting herself; Thane was slamming the trap door shut and bracing it with a piece of rebar.

Then several things happened at once.

Above them, an Alliance ship lowered. The massive wind and heat from the thrusters was heating up the roof. Garrus staggered to his feet, grasping Shepard around the waist, and pulled her away from the manway, which had suddenly started erupting turians.

The shuttle was suddenly there, Zaeed aiming it down onto the roof with a grim expression. He set the vessel neatly down on the concrete and was already swinging out of the pilot's seat with a gun in hand.

And soldiers began rappelling down from the open hanger bay of the Alliance ship. Shots began to fly. Garrus knotted his hand in the neck of Thane's jacket and saw Shepard put his pistol in the drell's hands. He began firing as Garrus dragged him back behind the shelter of the shuttle. Zaeed started laying down suppressing fire. The Alliance soldiers began firing as they hit the roof. Auralia's turians scattered and took cover in the various edifices that littered the roof. Two shots rang out close to Garrus and Shepard. Instinct took over and he curled his body around her unarmoured form. The shots hit his shields, took them down. He scuttled, shoving Shepard towards the open door of the shuttle.

"No! I'm not going to let you do this alone!" She said.

At that moment, he'd never been more proud of her, but it made no sense. She was injured and didn't have her armour.

"I got this!" He shouted over the roar of the wind from the Alliance thrusters and the gunshots. "Your uniform isn't going to stop any bullets."

"Godammit, Vakarian, let me help!" She was frustrated now, and Garrus realized, on the verge of tears. He bent close, tracing the tattoo mark over her nose.

"Heart of my heart…stay here. Please. You don't have to do it all." His voice was hushed, but she heard. She pressed her lips together, chin quivered a bit, and then she grabbed his cowl and yanked him close to lay her head against his helmet.

"If you die on me, I am going to be so pissed off at you." She said. Then she shoved him away. Garrus turned, caught up Thane in his arms and tucked him inside the shuttle beside her. Talons slapped down on Zaeed's shoulder pad and he shouted over the wind.

"Go! Get them out of here."

"You're shitting me, right?" The mercenary plugged out thee more shots and felled an unlucky turian that had darted out from behind cover.

"Get out of here before I shoot you myself." Garrus shouted between blasts from his assault rifle.

"What the fuck do you think you're going to do?"

"I'm going to tie up some loose ends. Now get her the fuck out of here."

As Zaeed turned and scrambled into the shuttle, Garrus saw Auralia skitter out of the manway and behind cover. A blast of gunfire from the Alliance ship lit up the sky; whoever was steering that monstrosity in the sky had fired the battery of the ship. Garrus took the opportunity to duck behind a raised stairway that must have led down into the complex. To his left, the shuttle lifted off, and began to raise away. Garrus craned his neck, and saw Shepard staring out at him. Her hand was pressed to the glass. She looked so damn forlorn and frustrated. Talons pressed to his heart as he watched her. Tears slid down her cheeks, her hand patting at the glass, and she nodded.

_I love you, Ezmay_. He thought. He didn't want to see her cry; He was going to come back from this, right after he made sure that Auralia would never hurt her again.

Now he was grateful for the Alliance ship, and the soldiers who were behind cover with him. Another set of three soldiers rappelled down; one didn't make it. He hit the roof with a stomach-turning thud. Another just managed to make it to cover before he took a shot in the gut. The third loped towards Garrus and slid down beside him.

"You got yourself in a real mess here, Vakarian."

Alenko. Garrus grinned behind his helm. At this point, the turian was so jazzed from battle and saving Shepard that he didn't give a good godamn if he was dancing with the devil.

"Six against six. What do you think, Kaiden? We've got up against worse odds."

"It's about to get a lot worse. My other ship is holding the front with your people but their forces just got much lighter. I'd say we're about to have more company."

"Bring it on." Garrus laughed into his breather mask. "Lift them up. I'll set them back down."

His talons patted the sniper rifle.

"Just like old times." Kaiden sounded amused behind his helmet. Garrus could only see his eyes; they were crinkling up around the corners.

"Just like old times." The turian agreed. Biotics flared around the human, and he yanked a fist upwards and back. Two turians, caught in the hold of biotic power, found themselves scrabbling at the air. Garrus leaned against his rifle, lined up the shots, and plugged them both in the head.

A wave of battery fire exploded behind them. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw more of Auralia's forces approaching them, flanking them. The blasts from the Alliance ship kept them at bay for the time being, but they were going to have to deal with them at some point.

"Kaiden, let's hurry this up. This situation is going to turn bad."

"Just what I was thinking." Another biotic lift. As two more turians floated skywards, Garrus lined up his shot. Then Auralia popped out from behind cover and fired at him. The bullets whizzed by his head, his shields flaring. He had to fall back behind cover, lest he find himself headless.

"That bitch…she's going to make this tough."

Kaiden didn't respond. Instead, he grunted, and flared more brilliantly blue than Garrus had ever seen before. A huge push, and the two turians caught up in the lift were catapulted off the roof. They must have crashed down into the undergrowth, but Garrus didn't hear anything. Instead, he was too busy trying to line up a shot on Auralia. Her body was just visible from the edge of the edifice she was hiding behind. If he could get just the right shot, he could put a bullet in her hip and hopefully spin her out of cover.

He took the shot at the same time a bullet caught his helmet. The sound of a ricochet told him he'd missed. And dammit, there was a gaping hole in the mask where good Dr. Chakwas had grafted him together. He glanced behind him, and found a turian nearly on him.

Garrus spun, swinging the butt of the rifle and catching the other turian in the face. To his right, there was a cry, and an Alliance soldier went down for the count. He and the other turian went down in a heap, grappling at each other. The rifle fell, skidded out of his reach. A well-placed punch knocked him down, and suddenly he was on his back with talons curling around his throat.

"Garrus!" Kaiden shouted. He flared again, seizing the turian with biotics and yanking him back.

Garrus scrambled up, moving backwards and snatching up the sniper rifle. He was at a disadvantage; he hadn't gotten his pistol back from Thane. That was a problem he soon remedied though. He fired on the turian, point-blank with the rifle, and relieved the dead turian of his sidearm. Behind Kaiden, another soldier fell.

"We're screwing our odds, here." Garrus shouted.

Kaiden turned his head, yelling something into his radio. Above them, the Alliance ship began to roar. A canon beam came down, firing on the turians that had flanked Kaiden and Garrus from behind. The sky lit up like fireworks, and the back of the building exploded. Fire howled and debris went everywhere. Garrus had just enough time to take cover from the explosion.

Well. It was thorough, if heavy-handed. At least they didn't have to worry about being snuck up on.

It was time to end this. Garrus jerked his head towards the remaining turians, now five on Auralia's side against their four. Kaiden nodded, and they leaped from behind cover as if they'd coordinated this ages ago. They made a rush, guns blazing. Kaiden and his two marines caught the other four unawares. Garrus, himself, caught Auralia crouching and thumbing a fresh clip into her shotgun. He pounced on her, knocking the gun out of her claws. The two rolled, wrestling as they went.

Holy hell, she was strong. When he'd met her, she was a slight little thing with refinement, good breeding, and not a confrontational bone in her body. Now she was snapping and groping at him. They traded punches, seemingly taking turns putting white stars in each other's vision. Garrus managed to knock her back, and swooped in to grab her by the cowl and slam her head back against the concrete. Auralia cried out, and kicked up at him. She found that sensitive place of plating between his legs and Garrus fell off of her. The pain wasn't as terrible as eating a rocket to the face, but it staggering him for a moment. She sprung up, on him, a knife in her claws. Garrus jumped back, out of range of her swing. Again, she sliced at him, and he wasn't fast enough this time. It caught at his waist, at a chink between hard armoured sections. There was a hot flash in his side, blood running down his body inside his suit. He feinted at her, drawing a strike, and ducking under. Again, he knocked her down. Again they rolled. Garrus seized her wrist and slammed it against the concrete until she dropped the knife. He didn't see her other hand curl around a chunk of debris from the explosion. Auralia swung in up, the concrete crunching against the side of his helmet. He lurched off of her.

Auralia stood, darting back to where her knife lay. She stood, panting, staring at him.

His talons came up and undid the latch that held his helmet on. The visor was cracked. He couldn't see. The hard blue acrylic hit the concrete and rolled away. Around him, there was the smell of fire, of vegetation. He could hear her now, curing him and his name.

"You!" She hissed. "You killed Lantar!"

"He deserved it." Garrus snapped back, climbing to his feet.

"What would have done in his situation?!"

"Not what he did. He killed ten people. Might as well have shot them himself."

Auralia roared, rage spilling over. She threw herself at him, the wicked curved blade of the knife swinging. Garrus dodged, kicked out with a foot and hooked it behind her spur. She tumbled.

Her anger made her careless. Garrus seized the opportunity and fell on top of her. His talons seized Auralia by the throat, and he squeezed. She gripped at his wrists, trying to pull them away. She kicked at him, aiming once more for the same sensitive spot. This time, Garrus laid his body weight on her, sat on her legs, pinning her down.

"You killed him." She gasped, choking.

"He deserved it."

"You're not the executioner. Not the jury." Her voice was rasping, she was fighting for breath. Garrus squeezed.

"..mating with a human…"

Garrus snarled. Insulting Shepard wasn't going to get her out of this.

"…..going to die…" Auralia gasped. She was running out of air. Her grasp at his wrists were loosening. One hand dropped down to her side.

"Yes. You are." Garrus's voice went deadly quiet. "Lantar killed my men. You tried to kill my mate."

"………taking……you……with me." Auralia smiled at up him before her eyes rolled back in her head. Her heels kicked at the concrete, legs twitching.

Then she went still. It took a herculean effort for Garrus to unwrap his hands from her throat.

A beeping from Auralia's omni tool caught his attention. He bent his head, looked down, and saw a countdown spiraling on the orange display.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck….._

He leaped back off of her lifeless body, and looked to where Kaiden was playing cleanup with the last two turians. He'd lost his last soldier and the two had him pinned down. Garrus snatched up his pistol and took two shots. He had a better vantage point from where he was, and his aim was true. One shot took a turian in the throat. Another went down, clutching at his gut.

Then it was over. It was silent on the roof except for the Alliance ship above, his own labored breath, and Kaiden's gasping.

But there was no time to stop. Garrus darted over to Kaiden, and snatched him up by the armour.  
"We gotta go. She's got a bomb here or something."

"Get your team out of here. We'll go on the ship."

A rumbling was starting somewhere deep in the base. Garrus nearly screamed into the radio.  
"Evacuate! This place is going to blow!"

Kaiden grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him towards a rope ladder that hung from the open hanger bay door. God, he'd never climbed anything so fast in his life. Below them, the base was starting to go, small explosions shaking the building and throwing him unsteady. He clambered up, swinging his legs up into the hangar bay. Human hands helped him up, shoved him back into the hangar bay and out of the way. He saw Kaiden jostling up, the soldiers clustering around and yanking the Commander back into safety.

"Reynolds, radio up to the CIC and tell them to punch it."

The hangar bay door closed behind them, with Kaiden rushing Garrus down the hallways of the Alliance ship towards the CIC. Garrus could feel the speed of the ship building, the ship defying gravity and lifting at a rate of speed that would have made the ship's engineers blanch white.

They had just barely cleared the atmosphere when the base went up like a Christmas tree. The explosion was catastrophic, the aftershocks of the nuclear blast kicking the ship up and out into space. It was like Virmire all over again. Only when they were in the black of space did Garrus allow himself to relax.

They'd made it. And Shepard was safe.

Nothing else mattered.

*******

Kaiden had the good grace to take Garrus back the Normandy via shuttle, and he piloted the craft himself. Personally, Garrus was ready to be back on the SR2. The Alliance personnel were polite enough, but he was aching to see Shepard, to reassure himself that she was well and truly safe.

Shepard met the shuttle, flanked by Zaeed and Miranda. As the shuttle set down, Garrus pressed his face to the glass, searching for her. He could see her form in the overlook of the shuttle bay, watching.

The reunion was sweet. Garrus swung his feet out and stepped onto the floor of the hangar. There she was, rushing to meet him. She was moving as fast as she could on that damnable cane. He knew that she hated the thing, but her leg was wrapped in a brace, and she couldn't move faster than a hobble. Garrus caught sight of her, and his gait speeded up. He caught her around the waist, and swung her around. Her arms came down around his cowl, and she clung to him. Her hair tickled his mandibles, her head tucking underneath his chin. Garrus pressed her close, one hand coming up to caress down over the silky black tresses. The embrace was heaven. Her scent filled his nose, and he closed his eyes. She smelled spicy, like nutmeg and roses.

He was only barely aware of Kaiden, Zaeed, and Miranda standing awkwardly. The embrace would have lasted all day, if Zaeed hadn't cleared his throat. As Garrus released her, his eyes went over Shepard's new tattoos. It wasn't bad work, really. Just a thin line over her nose, cheekbones, and temple. The lines streaked down over her cheeks. It was a good thing they were pencil-thin lines. The ink obscured too much of her face as it was. Shepard looked up at him, smile tugging at her lips, and then cleared her throat.

"Thane?" Garrus asked.

"He's resting in the medbay." She said. Her eyes went to Kaiden, then, and she turned to face the human.

"Commander." He said. There was pain apparent on Kaiden's face.

"Kaiden…I know we didn't part on the best of terms. But I want to thank you for Garrus…for getting him out."

"It was the right thing to do. He would have taken on the entire lot of them himself."

There was a snort from Zaeed. Garrus shot him a look over Shepard's head.

"I also want to thank you. For coming to help."  
Kaiden straightened up. Leaning on the cane, Shepard limped over to him. For a moment, the two stared at each other, and then she opened her arms to him.

Garrus saw a ghost of a smile cross Kaiden's face, and he wrapped his arms around Ezmay. The hug was bittersweet. He might not have accepted the fact that Shepard had chosen Garrus instead of waiting for him to come around, but she was safe and alive, and the animosity between the two was bleeding off like letting stale air out of a tire.

"You're welcome. You know I'd never turn away from you."

The two parted, Shepard looked up into Kaiden's face. There were unspoken volumes there, a lifetime of regret packed into two years and a heavy glance.

Kaiden cleared his throat, and took a proprietary step back.

"So, uh, what's next on the agenda?"

"Probably nothing you can help with." Shepard said. "We've got to go back to the Citadel. I hear we have a deal with the Shadow Broker."

"Ah, that. Well, we happen to be heading in the same direction. Have to report back to Councilor Anderson."

Shepard crooked an eyebrow at him.

"I wasn't entirely honest with Garrus. We do have a spy in the Shadow Broker's network, but the fact is a captured Spectre garners some attention. Anderson called up volunteers to help Officer Vakarian extract you. I got in line."

It made sense to Garrus now, the fortuitous meeting on the way to Invictus, the information…

"I'm glad you were there." Garrus spoke up from behind Shepard.

"So am I." Again, that faint smile on Kaiden's face. "It was like old times. Anderson says that he wants to meet with both you and Garrus when you get in to the Citadel again."

"Tell him we'll be there." Shepard nodded, her hand falling down to squeeze at Garrus's talons.

Kaiden's eyes went to that small gesture, and then he nodded. He smiled a tight lipped smile, and then turned on his heel to leave.

All in all…Garrus would say that meeting went off pretty well.

*******

"The Reapers are still out there." Shepard said, peering over her cards. They were back to briscola, back to wine, but this time, she and Garrus were curled on their bed.

He ogled her at his leisure. A card slipped out of his talons, and he took the trick, gathering the pasteboards up on his side of the bed. Briscola wasn't that hard when Ezmay wasn't cheating. He was winning this game easily. Shepard frowned at him.

"And I see someone learned how to play…"

Her hand went out to set down a card; Garrus laid his cards down and reached out to curl his talons over her outstretched hand.

"Shepard, there's something I need to tell you."

She looked up at him, those brilliant green orbs flashing.

"If it's about the ink….I already told you. I asked for a butterfly. They wouldn't do it."

"It looks good on you." He said, truthfully. Whatever had possessed Auralia to tattoo Ezmay's face….well…it was beyond him. He knew that he liked the marks on her. It was right. And he couldn't really deny it anymore.

"I'm glad you think so." Her free hand traced over her cheekbone. The dark blue contrasted nicely with her dark skin. "I think it kind of makes me look like a badass."

"Like you needed any more help in that department." He grinned at her. "Of course, it helps that you managed to end up with the markings of the most stylish, suave turian of them all."

"Oh, listen to you." Her lips twisted at him, her white teeth flashing. "You've gotten entirely too full of yourself. You get a promotion and suddenly you're gallivanting all over the galaxy in my ship. You're insubordinate."

His talons twined through her fingers. Garrus was suddenly serious. The fact didn't escape Ezmay, and she stared back at him. For a long time, they didn't speak. He stared at her, and she gazed back at him. She could feel his emotions inside her. He could feel the wonder in her heart. She hadn't expected this, and truthfully, he hadn't expected to bond with her this quick.

"Is this how it is for turians?" She said, very softly.

"Yes. " His reply was simple. He didn't elaborate beyond that because he didn't have to. There were curiosities amongst all species. Among turians, it simply happened that love brought energies together. She knew what he meant, and it surprised her.

"I should have told you before that I love you." He said, his voice husky. The sudden vulnerability made him uncomfortable.

"You didn't have to. I knew." Ezmay smiled at him. "Why doesn't everybody talk about this?"

"Jesus, what a nightmare that'd be. It's why you rarely see many mated turians out and about. Can you imagine how vulnerable that'd make us? Capture a mate and terrorize the other one with their fear?"

"Which is why Auralia was so insane."

The name soured the mood, but the silence eased it. Soon, Garrus reached out and pulled Shepard to him. The cards stuck to her skin, but she didn't pay it any mind.

"When we get to the Citadel, I want to make this permanent." He said, his voice coming out of nowhere.

Ezmay laid her head against his bony shoulder. Garrus could feel her sleepiness, and the warm contented feeling settling into her chest. She knew he was nervous saying that, but her reaction reassured him.

"Ezmay Shepard Vakarian has a nice ring to it." Her response was murmured.

At last, they could finally ease into comfort and sleep.

There was still so much to do. But for tonight, the world was theirs, there in their cabin.


	12. Chapter 12

_Epilogue_

In the days before they docked at the Citadel, Ezmay sat up reading while Garrus slept. She waited until he had drifted off, and then she would silently creep over to her terminal and dial up the file she'd been reading previously. It wasn't so hard to get information on Auralia Sidonis. Kaiden was willing to forward over the personnel information he'd had going into the Invictus fiasco.

From what she understood from Auralia's file, the turian woman hadn't gone completely psychotic, or lost touch with reality. Not really. Lantar's death was still relatively fresh; they'd killed him only a couple of months ago. That fact made Ezmay feel a trifle worse; Auralia had been deep into grieving, and her actions, though not excusable, were understandable.

Claws settled on her shoulders and moved to massage the back of her neck. Ezmay looked upwards, saw Garrus standing behind her and looking down. Damn, he was quiet. Or she'd been so absorbed in reading.

"What are you doing?" He asked, pressing his thumbs into the muscle and removing a kink that had settled into her neck from hunching over the terminal. That was one thing she could definitely get used to, him just knowing things. She liked this general sense of connection to him that revealed emotion and bodily feeling. It was unusual at first, but now she understood why turians mated for life. It made the garbled communication of a relationship a negligible issue. It was easier to stay with someone when you could literally understand what they were feeling.

Ezmay looked back towards the terminal, and scrolled down a bit on the screen.

"I'm trying to understand Auralia." She paused, chewing on her lip, thinking. "I can't say honestly that I wouldn't act as she did if I found myself in her situation, but then…I know you wouldn't have allowed yourself to get into Lantar's situation."

"Don't be so sure." Garrus said. "Everyone's got their weak point. The person who says they can't be bought just hasn't heard the right price yet. Sidonis went cheap; he thought his life was more important than many lives."

"What's your weak point?" She looked up at him.

"I would think that's already obvious." His mandibles flared in amusement. "Now, let me sit. I want to show you what I've been looking at while _you've_ been sleeping."

Now Ezmay was entertained as well. She got up, using the desk for support, and let Garrus take her chair. Then she settled herself on his lap. She watched as he navigated through her computer with an ease that came from repeated use.

"How much have you been up here?" She asked.

Garrus only gave her a smile for a response. He brought up a picture of a simple white dress cut with an asymmetrical hem that would brush her ankles. It had a wide, white ribbon under the bust and no straps or sleeves to be seen.

"In human culture, the woman picks her own dress." Ezmay leveled a disapproving glance at him.

"You're wearing it for me, aren't you? Be glad I didn't pick out one that makes you look like a frilly little cupcake."

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she was wearing the dress just as much for herself, but then, it didn't much matter. The dress suited her, and they were having a simple ceremony with a legal official doing the honours. It wasn't her style, or his for that matter, to have the lavish party that was so common back on Earth. From what she understood of turian wedding rites, there wasn't much to them. They had every intention of disappearing into the Citadel's luxury wards for a few days before Shepard presented herself to Anderson and the Council for assignment.

"You sure about this?" Her eyes turned to him, away from the terminal, and she found he was staring at her as well. She felt self-concious when she realized he was staring at the tattoo on her face.

"I'm sure. I've never been so sure about something. We fit together, you and I, and not just in the lecherous way that just popped into your head."

Ezmay grinned sheepishly. Never let it be said that her libido was nonexistent. Man, this was going to take some getting used to, the connection of soul and mind to him. She let her fingers trail back lazily over his fringe, and felt his chest begin to rumble in pleasure.

His arms slid around her, and they were up, Garrus carrying her back towards the bed. She laughed with delight, sliding her limbs around his cowl. Ezmay lay a kiss on his mandible and let him lay her on the soft bedding.

"What was it you called me on Invictus?" She said, voice hushed, as he climbed into the bed on top of her.

Garrus's breath tickled at her forehead. He nuzzled her, their brows touching.

"Heart of my heart."

"I like that."

Garrus smiled then. He liked it too. He liked it very much.

**A/N** Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this, then keep an eye out. After my final exams are over, I have two glorious weeks of freedom to write before the summer semester starts, and Ezmay and Garrus inform me that I still have a lot more of their adventures to write. TL;DR, there's more coming. Until then, please let me know what you thought. Literary critique makes me a better writer. Again, thank you for reading and enjoying this as much as I enjoyed writing it.


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